


Star Wars: Episode X - Wrath of the Republic

by Hans_Gonk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action, Biopunk, Canon-Typical Violence, Cyberpunk, Drama, Fantasy, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Sex, Martial Arts, Mild Blood, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Mystery, Non-Graphic Violence, References to Drugs, Revolution, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Some Humor, Space Opera, Ten Years Later, Thriller, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hans_Gonk/pseuds/Hans_Gonk
Summary: Set ten years after Star Wars:Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, The New Republic has been restored. However they are under a corrupt Chancellor restricting the rights of those with force sensitivity and softens restrictions to businesses, leaving Aliens homeless. Finn runs for Chancellor to put a stop to this corruption and Poe Dameron leads the Anti Republic preparing for a revolution. During all of this, Rey Skywalker forms the New Jedi Order and assists Poe's Anti Republic movement.However, three new heroes arise. SRC-0, a mysterious droid with force sensitivity, connected to something sinister. Shok Cro'Rr, an exiled, though friendly, Tusken Raider. Mors Fal, a thug that wants to rescue his adoptive sister who was taken away by the New Republic. The three young heroes must overcome the odds stacked against them if they want to live peaceful lives, even if it means saving the galaxy.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

A long time ago in a galaxy far,

far away. . . .

**Star Wars**

**Episode X**

**WRATH OF THE REPUBLIC**

As the New Republic is reformed, evil is reborn. Chancellor Hi Kayzer, a member of the Free Republic Party, fulfills his campaign against the Force Sensitive. Placing laws segregating them, banning them from Coruscant and setting up the “Planetary Vote Value” system which is correlated to allies of the Galactic Empire and First Order as well as planets affected by the Clone Trooper Army. This system allowed Chancellor Kayzer to win the election after his 2nd term not winning the popular vote.

In addition, leniencies were made to businesses so they don’t have to hire aliens without breaking the laws. This sparked many Resistance veterans to form the Anti Republic. A militia that supports the lower class and prepare for a war if needed. However, the media presents them as radicals with a good chunk of the public skeptical of them. Any support for the Anti Republic is done in secret, such as what the New Jedi Order is doing.

Not all hope is lost. Kayzer’s third term is almost up. Senator Finn runs for office under the Galactic Unity Party. While he is getting a lot of support, most doubt he’ll win due to how bias the Vote Value system is. The Anti Republic suspects Holowan Laboratories has a hand in the Planetary Vote Value system, believing they're going to gerrymander in Kayzer’s favor. They plot and espionage, gathering any information they can to prove their case.

During their investigation they spotted a mysterious shipping freighter near Holowan Laboratories import route. This freighter is causing random power and connection outages with its radius. Poe Dameron volunteers to investigate the freighter, hoping to reveal the Free Republic Party’s treason…

* * *

An inactive heavy freighter floats across space far from any planet, surrounded by its own relatively small debris. The only sign of power is from the large cube-shaped trunk. Occasionally, large L-shaped flickering lights stretched along the sides of the trunk.

Three ships approach it: two T-75B X-wing starfighters led by The Outsider Iolaire. The T-75B X-wings are almost duplicates of the T-70 X-wings used in the Resistance-First Order War, but smaller snouts on the front and a more reddish color instead of a brown. The Outsider Iolaire is an upgraded Millennium Falcon. Slightly larger and has a smoother exterior.

The two X-wing pilots are a human Indian woman and a female Lung, a turquoise reptilian person with a smooth white mane. They’re both wearing Anti Republic pilot uniforms. They’re similar to what the Resistance pilots wore, with the only notable differences are the more modernized respirator and the black vests.

Poe Dameron is piloting the Outsider Iolaire. His hair is kept the same, al though it has gray on the sides and he grew a beard with a gray streak across his chin. He’s wearing Anti Republic pilot uniform that’s all black. He’s sitting to R2-D2 and in the large modernized, albeit messy deck. C-3PO and BB-8 sitting by a table playing a competitive holographic game similar to Puyo Puyo. It seems like BB-8 is outclassing C-3PO.

R2-D2 turns his head beeping at BB-8 and C-3PO. The two of them turn of the device.

“We must be getting close BB-8.” C-3PO figures.

“That’s strange…” Poe focusing on the freighter in the distance. “It looks like it’s been abandoned for a bit. Yet, our latest outage happened two hours ago.

The Lung responds to Poe through radio. “Do you think The New Republic Army attacked it?”

“I don’t think so, Jia.” Poe answering the Lung. “There doesn’t seem to be any signs of lethal damage. It looks more like it came from the inside…”

The other pilot chimes in. “You sure you don’t want us to do the infiltration instead?”

“That won’t be necessary, Aze.” BB-8 rolls up to Poe. “We need the droids for this one. Plus...” He rubs BB-8’s head. “I always stick by with BB.”

Poe lands the Outsider Iolaire on top of the Freighter. Upon doing so, the X-wings slowly circle around the Freighter. Poe gets out of his seat and adjusts a head strap around C-3PO’s head containing a camera and a flashlight. He then walks over to a closet nearby and takes out a black helmet with a full face visor and a jet pack.

“Okay R2 start transmission.” Poe commands.

R2-D2 beeps a bit, fiddling with the controls of the Iolaire . On both the X-wings’s dashboards, shows a live broadcast through Poe, C-3PO and BB-8’s cameras. Poe leads the two droids to the bottom deck of the Iolaire. An airtight door closes behind them, Poe grabs hold of to C-3PO’s arm tight. As the three lose gravity, R2-D2 lowers the boarding ramp. Poe uses his jetpack to traverse around the Freighter, BB-8 opens a circular hatch beneath its own body summoning a miniature rocket allowing him to traverse space and follow Poe.

Poe and BB-8 approach what looks to be the boarding entrance of the freighter. Poe tries to find a miniature torch from his pouch. He temporarily lets go of C-3PO.

“AH! MASTER POE! DON’T LET ME GO! NOOO-” C-3PO Panics

Poe finds his miniature torch and grabs C-3PO’s leg.

“Don’t ever do that again, please!”

Poe starts carving out a large circle of the entrance. When done, he takes the carved piece out of it, brings out his blaster and enters in the Freighter, with BB-8 tagging along.

Poe taps a part of his helmet turning on the flashlight. He does the same to C-3PO’s headpiece. BB-8 turns on his own flashlight. Poe scans the bay mostly focusing on several ships floating aimlessly, clearly meant to be parked. The bay is a mess, with debris and equipment floating everywhere, with loose wires hanging from the walls and ceiling.

“None of these seem to be starfighters” Poe analyzed.

“They’re definitely lower-to-middle class civilian ships.” Aze notices. “Kind of looks like a hospital’s launch bay.”

Poe sees the entrance to the building and flies over there. He temporarily lets go of C-3PO again trying to open the door with his hands.

“OH NO NOT AGAIN!” C-3PO is spinning away.

Poe grabs C-3PO, however, the door isn't opened.

“Can you please stop letting go of him!” Jia complains. “I’m gonna get motion-sick if he gets drifting off into space.”

“My bad.” Poe apologizes. “Just… Man! I forgot how much we relied on Chewie.” Poe torches a hole on the door.

“I hope he gets better soon.” Aze expresses concern.

“He’s getting up there.” Jia comments. “But, yeah, I hope he gets better too…”

As Poe continues to torch, he feels a bit down from the conversation. He’s not getting younger either and doesn’t want to think that these might be Chewbacca’s final days. He stops torching and pushes aside the carving.

Upon entering, Poe’s eyes widened, hearing the gasps from his fellow pilots.

C-3PO gets a glimpse on what Poe is staring at. “O-Oh dear…”

The room is a wide and long hallway filled with dead bodies floating in the air. The corpses are all wearing lab coats, with cybernetic implants of some kind on their body. There seems to be a diverse variety of alien races within this freighter. All of them have a burnt area on their chest. Poe takes a random body and flies it to a wall. Upon closer inspection, the burnt area has a large wound, looking like they’ve been shot. BB-8 comes forward bringing out a rod from its body, waving over the burnt spot.

“From what BB-8 can inspect sir…” C-3PO interprets the data for Poe. “Their hearts seem to have blown up." 

“So,” Poe tries to grasp what happened “some slicker hacked into them and overheated their cybernetic organs…?”

“With the wide variety of different races, sir. It would seem highly odd that all of their cybernetics would all be implemented in a similar haphazard manner.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, each race would have a cap on letting such a cybernetic organ heat up. While it was a common form of slicer murder several decades ago, it became a far rarer occurrence. Especially since, according to BB, these bodies only died a week ago.”

Poe is surprised to hear that. “The same time when the outages started happening…”

“Their uniforms don’t look like they’re from Holowan Labs.” Jia commented.

“They have a lot of connections.” Poe responds. “Come on BB-8, let’s continue investigating."

They move onward toward the end of the hall. They don’t stay and analyze everything as they need to get out quick before another outage happens. When they reach the end of the hall, they stopped and hear a noise. The whole freighter lights up, initiating gravity. Poe Crouches his landing, with C-3PO landing on his face and BB-8 landing on his head. They see the door in front of them starting to open. Poe quickly drags C-3PO to the wall, holding his blaster up. BB-8 readjusts himself and quickly moves at the opposite side relative to Poe. The door is completely opened and BB-8 peaks his head to see what’s inside.

As Poe pants he gets a message from Aze. “There seems to be only one person in there sir.”

“A-a single person?” Poe is still adjusting from what’s going on. “Are they alive?”

“I… I don’t know.”

Poe takes a few breaths in. “Stay behind me 3PO.” He looks to BB-8. “You too BB.”

Poe slowly enters into the room, C-3PO follows Poe, with BB-8 following suit. It’s clearly the Cube Trunk area, but it’s all white, bright, and completely empty. Poe sees the figure at the end of the room. He can’t quite make out what it is, but it looks humanoid. Poe puts away his blaster and slowly approaches it.

“Uh… Hey!” Poe tries to call it. There’s no response. Poe tries again. “Hey…!”

“Sir,” C-3PO comments “I don’t think it’s alive…”

The three get close to it. The dark figure looks like a person in full black armor, similar to that of a stormtrooper's, sitting with their legs crossed. But the helmet has two round circles, like it’s eyes. Two cones connected to the side of the helmet and two horns on top of the helmet. Similar to that of goat's, but more geometrical and smooth.

Poe just stares at it, not sure what to do right away. He tries to pick up its arm, checking for its pulse, but the arm is really heavy. He then tries to take off the helmet, but it won’t budge. Poe takes a step back, dumbfounded.

“You think this might be the freighter’s power source?” C-3PO asked.

“Man, 3PO.” Poe responds. “I don’t know… If it is why the hell is it shaped like a person.”

Poe knocks on its helmet and the eyes light up. Poe is taken aback. As Poe continues to stare at the black figure his vision starts to blue and blur and distort. He sweats looking at C-3PO, looking like he’s transforming into a yelling monstrosity and when looking at BB-8 it looks like he’s melting. Everything starts to pixelate in a variety of different colors.

Poe falls to the floor suffering from a seizure.

“Master Poe!” C-3PO worries.

“POE” Aze shouts.

“What part of the freighter are you at, C-3PO!?” Jia urgently asks.

“We’re in the trunk!” C-3PO yells.

Suddenly, the entire freighter starts to quickly rotate in random directions. R2-D2 gets the Iolaire off of the freighter immediately and flies close with the X-wings. Explosions emit from the sides of the freighter causing more debris. The X-wings and the Iolaire dodge any debris they can, chasing the trunk.

Jia looks at the stream on her dashboard noticing that C-3PO, BB-8 and Poe are floating in the air. She looks carefully at the freighter and notices the trunk is wobbling a bit. She sees that there’s a hitch connecting the trunk with the freighter.

Jia notices Aze is shooting at the trunk. “Jia! Stop!”

Aze stops firing. “Stop!? At this moment?”

“If we shoot a hole at the trunk Poe and the droids will be scattered into space. While we maybe to save Poe, there’s a good chance we’ll lose the droids.”

“So,” a small piece of debris hits Aze’s ship. “Ergh. What do you have in mind?”

“The trunk is a separate part of the freighter. We need to shoot the hitch connecting the two. Aze, you’ll shoot the hitch, R2, get in front of me. We need to make safe distance between us and the trunk.”

“Then what?”

“The trunk’s power should go out. I’ll try to get Poe and the Droids out and bring them in the Iolaire.” The freighter’s rotational spins are getting faster. R2-D2 sends them a message stating that the speed of rotation could out run their ships. “We don’t have much time Aze!”

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

R2-D2 brings the Iolaire in front of Jia’s X-wing. The two chase the trunk while shooting any debris that gets in their way. Aze chases for the hitch. She swiftly rotates and strafes her X-wing dodging the debris with elegance and precision. She starts to fire at the hitch but mostly misses, only scraping it. The clutter of debris gets intense. More and more debris starts attacking her X-wing, damaging her upper left wing. The distance between the ships and the freighter increased. Even the Iolaire is having trouble keeping up.

Jia notices Aze’s struggling. “R2! Shoot at the debris that’s giving Aze trouble! Also, Aze. You must focus on the hitch!”

R2 controls the Iolaire’s turret and blasts at any incoming debris towards Aze. However, the civilian ships from the freighter are now part of the debris. One hits the Iolaire knocking out its shield and the other causes damage to the top. Jia flies her X-wing above and assists R2 fighting against incoming debris, but also is getting hit a bit. Aze notices this and starts to panic a bit. She tries the best to calm herself, but can’t. She looks at the hitch and is angered by it. Angry that she can’t hit a simple hitch and is going to jeopardize Poe Dameron, her friend, Jia and the droids.

Aze fires. Her aim is a bit off, but the laser from her X-wing moves into to the hitch making a direct hit. The trunk and the freighter separates. Aze is relieved.

“I knew you can do it Aze!” Jia congratulates.

The freighter slows down. However, the trunk is still sporadically rotating and moving.

Jia is awestruck. “Aze, R2! I need both of you to stay back.” She chases the trunk.

“You’re going alone!?” Aze is alarmed.

“I’m going to shoot the door I’ll try to catch Poe. You two try your best to get the droids.”

Jia turns on her targeting system, which is now a graphical interface that appears on her window. She uses it to aim at the door. However the trunk’s speed has gotten faster when it was connected to the freighter. The system can’t lock-on the target.

“Damn.” Jia said to herself. “No wonder why Aze is having trouble…” She turns off the targeting system. “Aze… I’m sorry. I should have let you chase the trunk.”

“You don’t think you can catch up with it?” Aze asks.

“This is going to sound ridiculous. But, there's only one option we have left. I’m going to try to use the force.”

“What!? You can’t use the force! None of us can! We aren’t force sensitive.”

“I know…”

Jia takes a few deep breaths. As she has complete focus on the trunk. She gets her X-wing calibrated to the rotations of the trunks. She lays her eyes on the door. Sweat trips across her forehead. She fires. Aim is perfect. The laser rushes to the door. It gets pushed aside.

“No…” Jia utters. She loses calibration. She closes her eyes with a tear rolling down. “I’m sorry Poe. I failed…”

The figure inside the trunk tilts its head up. “Poe.” It speaks, with a high pitch androgynous voice, containing distortion similar to that of a droid.

The figure stares at Poe Dameron’s body and the power goes out in the trunk. When that happens, power within the X-wings and the Iolaire go out. Jia tries to move her ship, but can’t. Electricity in the trunk is back as do the ships. The trunk’s door opens, with only Poe pushed out of it. The trunk’s door closes and spirals out into space. Jia gets ecstatic seeing Poe. Brings out a mouth piece, similar to what a Kel Dor wears, and puts it on. She gets her X-Wing near Poe, opens her cockpit and grabs him. R2 and Aze fly over. Jia brings Poe into the Iolaire, doing anything she can to medically treat him. Aze gets to the dashboard of the Iolaire reporting a message to the Anti Republic headquarters requesting for immediate medical attention.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter of my fan fiction! Whether if you like the fan fic or not, leave a comment! Any feedback is helpful, whether it's praise or criticism.
> 
> Important note: February 3rd, 2020.  
> I also want to apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable about how Chewbacca is being implemented in this fan fic. When I was writing it at the time, I didn't know Chewbacca's actor, Peter Mayhew passed away 9 months ago (as of this writing). I never intended to have Chewbacca's illness to reflect Peter Mayhew's illness or death, this was entirely accidental and unintentional.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ahch-To**

Gray skies surround the oceanic horizon. Rey is alone, levitating above the course waters in deep meditation. Her attire hasn't changed much in the past 10 years, though it's now in a light gray color with a dark gray robe over it. Her hair is longer, though she still retains her iconic three knots on the back of her head.

As she meditates, waves circle around her with fluidity and ease. She receives a vision. A large cube drifting off into deep space. She sees C-3PO and BB-8 inside the cube.

_“Oh! This rider will never end!” C-3PO dreads. BB-8 Beeps. “You think that person is nice!? Well it would be so kind if they could stop this madness at once!”_

Rey then shifts her focus on the dark figure within the trunk. As she does, she feels… Confused. She’s getting a headache focusing on it. The waves passing her by intense in their motions loud claps of clashing into one another. A voice speaks to her.

“Rey.” Rey doesn’t notice she’s being called to. “Rey…? REY!”

She gets out of her trance, the waves calmed down and sees a young adult man in his late teens - early twenties wearing a flat cap. He stands on the shore of the beach and is dressed similar to what Rey used to wear when training under Luke, except his clothing is black. Rey stands on top of the water.

“We got a call from the Anti Republic’s Space station.” The young man informs. “It’s Zorii Bliss. She wants to speak to you.”

“Ah,” Rey responds. “Thank you Temiri. I’ll get to it right away.”

Rey walks back onto the island heading to the large stone temple on the center of the island. It’s not the same island where the original Jedi Temple is at. The New Jedi Order let the Lanai do whatever they want to that island. She passes by many Jedi dressed sparring with one another and performing different Jedi exercises. The Jedi Knights are dressed like Temiri. The Padwans wear the same clothing as the Jedi Knights, except they wear white instead of black. The Jedi Masters (now called The Jedi Mentors) are dressed like Rey. 

She enters in a large spacious circular room containing a large device in the center. Its illuminated by Zorii Bliss’s hologram. Instead of just a transparent blue color, she’s in full color, sporting her golden helmet, but in a maroon color trench coat.

“Greetings Zorii Bliss” Rey politely acknowledges.

“Hey Rey.” Zorii responds. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“You’re not. What is it you need?”

“Well, we’re wondering if you encountered any disturbance in the force.”

“I haven’t, though I just had a strange vision. It was powerful… But nothing… Sinister. Though, I must ask, are C-3PO and BB-8 with you?”

“No. We lost them during our investigations… That it might confirm that we're what we’re dealing with...”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Rey. In your vision. Was 3PO and BB in a cube-shaped room with a person in dark armor?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“Alright. Rey. Do you think we encountered a new Dark Jedi? Perhaps a Sith even?”

“I didn’t sense anything good or evil. Whenever I sensed Ben Solo when he was Kylo Ren. A man who was in lost and in pain, I still felt a dark aura whenever I sensed his presence. The best way I can compare this person’s aura… Is like an infant. Pure, but can’t control its tantrums. But, instead of crying with tears, it cries with the force.”

“Hmm… That might explain the seemingly random behavior.”

“What do you mean by random behavior?”

“Poe got into contact with the figure, waking it up. Upon doing so, he suffered from seizure.”

“Oh no! Is he alright?”

“OH. Don’t worry. He’s fine. He’s still hasn’t woken up. But he’s being treated as we speak. He's recovering according to our doctors. But continuing on, when our pilots struggled to save him… They mentioned it that it was almost like the figure gave Poe to them.”

“This is indeed a fascinating query. I’ll try to see if I can continue to spot them. I’ll let you know as soon as I can on what I managed to find. In the meantime, I have to get going. Ahch-To’s representative, Raw Pakehna and Finn are leaving for Coruscant.”

“Ah, right. Finn’s debate is tomorrow. Well, take your time Rey. We’ll talk to you later.”

As Zorii’s hologram goes away, Rey exits the room and heads for the entrance where a large is a front of it. Finn and a Neimoidian both wear nice black suits with an azure sash under their dress coats. The azure sash shows they’re representatives of the Galactic Unity Party. Many of the young Jedi Knights and Padawan surround the two, giving them their farewells.

A young Jedi asks the Neimoidian a question. “You sure don’t need one of us to protect you Mr. Pakehna? You never know what could happen.”

“That won’t be necessary young lad.” The Neimoidian responds. “I appreciate all of your concerns. But you know what the bastard Chancellor Kayzer has done.”

Rey approaches the two with the Jedi standing aside. She smiles seeing Finn and Raw.

“Thank you for visiting us Finn.”

“Oh it’s nothing!” Finn responds. “I maybe a politician now, but I still gotta make time to visit Temiri’s knighting ceremony!” Finn pulls in Temiri giving him a noogie. The two laugh and Finns lets go. “And it’s bee a while since we last met Rey! I gotta meet my friends once in a while. It helps bring some good vibes before the big debate.”

“I wish you best of luck.” Rey kisses Finn on the cheek. She turns to Raw. “I’m pretty nothing will happen to you. But are you sure you don’t want to bring anything to defend yourself?”

“I got what I need!” Raw knocks on his own chest, indicating he’s got some armor under his suit. “I know people want me dead, but I will not let the New Republic have its way with Ahch-To _that_ easily!”

A pilot gets out of the large ship. “Alright! We have to get to moving."

“May the force with you Finn.” said Rey.

“That’ll be a little hard on Coruscant.” Finn jests. The Jedi laugh.

Finn and Raw get on the ship and shortly after flies off. The Jedi wave their goodbyes at the ship. As Rey looks up, she has her concerns. An elderly man dressed exactly like her walks up to her.

“They will be fine Master Skywalker.” The elderly man reassures. “It would be foolish to do anything with them during these times.”

“I’m not too worried about that.” Rey turns to the elderly man. “I’m more concerned on what I just recently sensed.”

“Did you get a headache?”

“Yes. Did you sense it too?”

“All of the mentors sensed it. Some of the Knights had as well. It’s understandable to be skeptical. But it’s best to wait on such things til they become clearer.”

“Right… I’ll tell you more about what I have seen inside the temple.”

Rey walks with the elderly man into the temple. She hopes nothing sinister comes of this mysterious figure.

* * *

**The Anti Republic Space Station**

In the medical area, Poe is on one of the hospital beds. He slowly opens his eyes and turns his head. He sees Chewbacca next to him, also on a hospital bed. Chewie calmly and gleefully growls.

Poe grins “Nice to see you too Chewie...” He turns his head to the other side and sees Zorii Bliss. “Hey.” He greets, he gets up a bit, sitting on his bed. “Everything going okay?”

“Kinda.” Zorii answers. “Feeling any better?”

“Uh, yeah. You have any idea what happened?”

“It would seem that you had an encounter with a powerful force user. I have contracted Rey, she sensed this person. We don’t know what exactly this person is. But we figured that it gave you a seizure.”

“Damn… Is everyone alright though?”

“Jia, Aze and R2 are fine. The ships suffered from mostly minor damages… However… We lost C-3PO and BB-8.”

Poe jolts up. “WHAT!?! Okay, I’m glad Aze, Jia and R2 are fine. But the ominous force sensitive guy took them?”

“Rey managed to see them. They’re still fine and she is currently trying to further analyze their whereabouts.”

Poe tries to calm down. “Look. Uh. I don’t wanna doubt Rey or anything. But why didn’t she teleport them to Ahch-To?”

“This person is extremely strong with the force. Rey struggles to analyze it. Plus, those droids are pretty huge compared to small trinkets y’know.”

“Uh. Right. Okay…” Poe sits on the side of the bed, looking at the floor. He turns to Zorii. “So, I guess we wait in the mean time?”

“Pretty much.” The two don’t anything for a minute. Zorii sighs and sits next to Poe. “Poe… We’re getting worried about you.”

“I know. But. I can’t just sit there and let them do all the work. I have to work with them. I have to prove myself to them.”

“Just what the hell are you trying to prove?”

“Just… Well, you know. Trust.”

“But they already trust you.”

“Yeah well. It’s just that- It’s my fault for helping the New Republic get restored. I should of listen to Finn and Rose. I’m responsible for all the crap Chancellor Kayzer and the Free Republic Party has committed.”

“Don’t be so damn hard on yourself. Almost everyone on the Resistance was fighting for its return. Even I kinda thought it might redeem itself, learning the mistakes they made in the past. Few could of seen it coming. But now, here we are. We now know bringing back the New Republic was a mistake. Hell, the “Anti Republic” was mostly your idea after all. We are making an effort to fix our mistakes.”

Poe sighs. “… You’re right. I guess. The guilt, y’know? It’s one of those things that’s hard to scrub off. Hell, it’ll always linger…”

“I understand… Most of us have that regret. But that still isn’t a reason to push yourself.” Zorii opens her visor, showing her eye, with wrinkles along the sides.

“Yeah your eyes are still gorgeous. Your point?”

“Oh! Stop it you!” Zorii giggles, lightly pushing Poe’s head.

He grins. “Yeah, yeah I know what you mean.”

“I know we’re not decrepit. We still got plenty of fight in us left. But we’re not in our prime anymore. If you wanna respect our troops, you need to trust them.”

Chewbacca has a slight cough.

Poe turns to Chewie, then back to Zorii. “Alright I-”

Chewbacca’s coughs become erratic. Doctors immediately rush to him. Treating him.

Poe stands up looking at the doctors treating Chewbacca. He just watches with a true expression of sorrow. “Chewie...”

* * *

**Coruscant**

It is night time within the sprawling city of Coruscant. The buildings only gotten taller, though, more sterile. Even in the days of the Clone Wars, where the buildings shared the same color, still had a bit of character to them. Now, it’s tall glowing obelisks as far as the eye can see. The only true identifiers are the neon sign on top of the building and the ever changing advertisements placed of them.

Within the ship Finn and Raw are on, Finn looks out the window, seeing small glows of fire from the very bottom. Even if he can barely make it out, he knows full well what’s going on: riots. Within a span of two months, three aliens were shot by a human cop. One of the alien victims was a child. Each and every time, the cop only gets a slap on the wrist, getting away with murder.

The alien, human and near-human citizens ravage through out the streets. Breaking windows and causing collateral damage. They protest, they yell. The cops then march on, colliding with the rioters. The officers bring out their electrical batons and whack any alien that gets in their way, even the ones that didn’t attack them. They proceed to use a device that summons a type of mist, that spreads through out the entire street. Most the aliens don’t know what’s going on. When they breathe it they start coughing and yelling in pain.

Finn saw the live streams on the holonet. He saw the corruption the police acts towards the rioters. He knows full well he can’t mess this up. He can’t let them down. That’s why he’s scared. Nervous.

Raw touches his shoulder. “You’ll do fine, Finn.”

“Yeah. I know…” Finn responds “I just got a bad feeling about this.”

The ship lands on top of a hotel large hotel building. New Republic Troopers are on the top of it. They’re similar to stormtroopers, but they’re gold, wearing rebel helmets with visors exactly like the Guavian Death Gang’s. However, they’re blue and shaped like the Republic’s logo. Many of the Galactic Unity Party (G.U.P) politicians get out of the ship. When Finn gets out, the troopers salute. Finn salutes back and walks into the hotel building.

Finn and Raw walk across the hallway together.

“I’m going to my room and rest, man.” Finn informs. “Even with hyper-speed that was a long ass flight.”

“A smart idea. But unfortunately for me, I’m going to be having an interview. You have a nice rest Finn.”

“Thanks, and hope your interview goes well, Raw.”

The two separate. Finn enters an elevator. He presses a button and the door closes. He yawns, turns around and sees a tall, red, New Republic Trooper next to him. Aside from the color, the most noticeable difference with this one is the visor. It’s a skull-like mask.

“Uh.” Finn nervously speaks. “Hi?”

“Hello, Senator Finn...” The trooper responds.

Finn recognizes her voice. Her eyes are visible through the mask. One eye is perfectly normal blue eye. The other is a completely white eye, without an iris our a pupil. The skin around this particular eye looks burnt.

“Have we met before…?” Finn asks.

“ _Noo_.” The trooper, seemingly answers sarcastically. “This the first time we met, Senator… It’s…” She grumbles a bit. “An honor to meet you.”

Finn knows who she is. He’s now scared for his life. The elevator door opens, the two walk out of it. An enraged military general is in front of him.

“ **COLONEL HATAL!!!** ” Yelled the general.

“A C-c-colonel Hatal?” Finn stuttered. Baffled by the ridiculous name.

“You’re supposed to be back at base!” The general continued.

“My apologizes General Bastch.” The trooper gives a slight bow. “I was merely making sure the G.U.P candidates were safe...”

“That doesn’t matter. You weren’t given orders to come here! You never reject your current duties, do I make myself clear, Colonel?”

“Yes General. I understand.”

“Good. Now back to base! Pronto!”

General Hatal takes her leave through the elevator.

“I am so sorry about that little scene, Senator.” General Bastch apologizes.

“It’s fine, sir.” Finn still a little startled.

"Don't call _me_ sir. Any general worth a damn knows who you are. The name 'Finn' holds more value than the rank 'general.'"

Finn chuckles. "I'm flattered, General. But all of us were responsible in putting a stop to both the First Order and the Final Order. Even you."

"Yeah, but I didn't use Orbaks to take on a Star Destroyer!"

“Heh. I was just lucky on that. In the end, it was the people that stopped them. Lando proved that. But I got a question about Colonel Hatal. Why does she look different than the other New Republic troopers?”

“Oh. Yeah. Holowan Laboratories have been collaborating with the Military. She’s one of the few implementations by them.”

“I see." Finn not happy to hear Holowan Laboratories is collaborating with the military. This isn't their first time they meddled with military affairs. General Grievous was a product of Holowan Laboratories. "She’s uh… Very… Interesting.”

“She’s a huge pain in the ass too. Though. I must admit. She can fight… Well. I’ll get out of your way Senator. You have a nice night.”

“Thank you.” Finn approaches his room and Bastch enters in the elevator. As he was about to enter in his room he turns around. “I have one question. Is Colonel Hatal, Phasma?”

General Bastch doesn’t respond right away. “I can’t answer that question, Senator. I’m sorry.” 

The elevator door closes. Finn now has a sense of dread. If Colonel Hatal is truly his archenemy Captain Phasma then it means two things: Holowan Laboratories had connections with The First Order if they were to retrieve Phasma's body and it's clear the New Republic wants him dead. 

* * *

**New Republic Space Station**

New Republic Space Station.

A massive space station that serves as the New Republic’s capital. Learning from the mistakes of The New Republic had before, it takes the extra precaution by having the station covered in the best cloaking devices money can buy.

Inside one of the rooms, two men wearing purple sashes that represent the Free Republic Party (F.R.P) are watching news footage on a giant screen. One man is an overweight human, the other is a skinny umbaran.

The news footage mostly covers the Galactic Unity Primaries debate. Discussing predictions between Finn and his opponent, Aszaxy The Hutt.

“If Finn wins this.” The umbaran comments. “This could be an interesting election. Finn was one of the few members of the Resistance who objected to the New Republic’s restoration.”

“Regardless on who he is.” The human responds. “It’s going to be another sweep.”

A hologram appears between the two. It looks to be a person sitting at a desk.

“Chancellor Kayzer.” The person in the hologram announces.

“Yeah?” The human responds. “What is it?”

“Holowan Laboratories CEO, Kyz Banon is here. He wants to speak to you. Should I let him in?”

Kayzer groans. “What does he want?”

“He wants to discuss about the current debate.”

Kayzer looks to the umbaran. “He’s annoying.” The umbaran comments. “But, we need him.”

“Fine!” Kayzer said aggressively. He looks to the hologram. “Let him in!”

The hologram goes away, as is the news broadcast. The two turn to door and a cyborg alien in between two New Republic Troopers walk in.

“Good evening Chancellor Hi Kayzer.” The cyborg looks to the human. Then proceeds to turn his head to the umbaran. “Good evening Vice Chair Radoo Vlacrul.”

“Evening Kyz Banon.” Kayzer greets to the cyborg. The troopers leave the room.

Kyz is half kaminoan, half skaoan. A lot of his kamino side shows, through his skin and aesthetic style of clothing. However his stature is more Skaoan with a more visible neck. He has cybernetics on his face and a module on his chest. Though unlike Wat Tambor of the Techno Empire, the electronic apparatus on his chest lacks analog knobs and is far modernized and smaller.

“So what do you want?” Kayzer rudely asks.

“I have seen your recent press conferences.” Kyz explains. “If this is how you present in light of the riots within of Coruscant. I’m most concerned on how you’re going to do against Finn if he were to win the primaries. Your debates against Raw Pakenah on the last Chancellor election were also unsatisfactory.”

“Well. I won didn’t I? The Vote Value System is what’s going to keep my ass in office, til’ I stop being alive.”

“I can only gerrymander so much. The primary election will be all G.U.P. I can’t use a vote value system on that.”

“Okay, so what? He gets elected! I’m not a fan of you downplaying my mass appeal. I'm the biggest cult of personality in the galaxy. I make Darth Sidious look microscopic Look at my fans on social media. I’m a god!”

“You still lost the popular vote on the last election. Support for Finn can overwhelm any meddling I do, without making it even more obvious. If I do that at such overwhelming support, revolts will happen. Not helped that he has the side of the Jedi!”

“Look. We might of banned Jedi. We might not have The New Jedi Order on our side. But we still got the Jedi Restoration Order working with us.”

“The Jedi Restoration Order doesn’t have Master Rey Skywalker! That’s the problem.”

“Whatever the problem is.” Vlacrul interjects. “Having Kayzer improve his debate skills isn’t going to solve this matter. Just get to what you’re really trying to propose Kyz.”

“That is correct Vlacrul. Debating can also only get you so far. It involves the Anti Republic.”

“Pfft! The Anti Republic!?” Kayzer laughs. “Those try hard pricks pose no threat whatsoever! Don’t tell me you’re concerned about them!”

“Underestimating your enemies will be your greatest downfall, Chancellor! Don’t forget about what happened with the First Order. We didn’t think much of them at first. Then they destroyed the New Republic in one fell swoop!”

Kayzer rolls his eyes, Vlacrul elbows his arm. “Fine! Kayzer admits. “Tell me more.”

“The Anti Republic will have close ties with The New Jedi Order and The G.U.P. After all, these groups comprise one of the three great heroes: Rey, Finn and Poe… The Anti Republic’s reputation is weak. But not controversial enough to make associations with. If we can justify our decisions to paint them as terrorists. Finn nor the New Jedi Order can endorse the Anti Republic. Doing the opposite will make them look like traitors without any integrity. Regardless, this will strengthen the F.R.P! At that, just improve your debate skills Chancellor. You’ll have a guarantee victory!”

“Alright.” Kayzer expresses interest. “I like the way you think. Just how do we trash the Anti Republic’s reputation?”

“With this.” Kyz brings out a miniature hologram, showing them to Kayzer and Vlacrul.

“W-What… Is that foul lookin’ thing?”

“What is it supposed to?” Vlacrul asks.

“It’s quite simple...” Kyz goes on to explain.

* * *

**Coruscant Underworld**

Piles of trash lay within, creating mountainous terrains of waste. Two people with flashlights walk along this wasteland. A teenage human boy with hair covering his eyes and an adult rodian woman.

“How much farther is it, Mors?” The rodian woman asks.

“Not much more, sis.” The human boy responds.

As Mors and his supposed older sister traverse the area, the sister is reasonably scared. It’s late and places like this are a sure fire way to bump into crime. Mors doesn’t seem to mind though.

“You know,” the sister remarks. “Lunoa Osbay does want to help you too. He think he can help.”

“I think your boyfriend is being patronizing, Neelki.” Mors doubts. “With the way things are going right now. I don’t think he can change much. At least, in Coruscant anyway.”

“Mors. When are you going to understand. He’s not like those other business man. He’s an adamant Finn supporter and is genuine for wanting equality for all races.”

“Yeah, like Finn is gonna win with the Vote Value system.”

Neelki sighs. “He does love me! When are you going to understand that?”

Mors stops and Neelki bumps into him. “We’re here.” he points his flash light at a large object covered in a sheet. “If your boyfriend really loves you, he’s gonna like this too.” He heads over to the object. “This took me five years to build.”

Mors takes off the sheet showing off a giant starfighter. It resembles the Slave I, with the cockpit looking like a ball. It contains two thrusters, one on back the other on the bottom.

“You built this?” Neelki is shocked and impressed. “W-with the drug money?”

“Yeah...” Mors walks to Neelki. “Sis. We can leave. We can bring your stupid Twi’lek boyfriend too. We can restart a new life on another world.”

“Mors… I’m proud and all. But. We can’t leave. Not with this.”

“W-wait what do you mean?”

“Well. We need passports and a permit. You know? And wait. Are those blasters on the ship?” She points to the obvious blasters.

“Maybe.”

“Mors. We’re going to get in serious trouble if we fly in this thing. Plus, I can’t just leave my job now-”

“ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW!?! We can’t just sit our asses on this damn planet forever!”

“I don’t want to stay here longer either! We just… We just can’t…”

The two don’t speak for a minute.

“Mors, we should get going… It’s getting late...” She walks away back home. Mors doesn’t move. Neelki stops and turns around. “A-are you coming?”

“… Yeah...”

Mors walks with Neelki back home with his head down. He turns his looking at the ship he built. All that effort. All that time. All that pain, suffering he endured. It was all for nothing.

* * *

**Tatooine**

A Tusken Raider Chief sits within his tent with only him and his two torches that barley illuminates the harsh darkness on Tatooine. A group of Tusken Raiders enter in tossing in a beaten Tusken Raider in front of the chief. One with horns that on the back of his head. They all speak in Tusken.

One member group steps up and points at the Tusken Raider laid before the chief. “We caught this man, Shok Cro’Rr, separated from the group interacting with a human child speaking in their tongue!”

The chief is not amused to hear this. “What do you have to say for yourself Shok!? This better be good.”

“I...” Shok speaks.

“STAND UP!” the Chief shouts.

Shok struggles to stand on his knees. “It wasn’t… It wasn’t like I was befriending the child. I was telling the boy to stay away from our area. That was all.”

“That doesn’t explain how you were able to speak the common tongue!”

“I learned it from listening to them. Should we not learn their language? If I had not known the common language. I might have killed the child and we could of caused a bigger mess. Having to deal with the boy’s family!”

The chief ponders this. “Even if we don’t kidnap the child. We could still have another blue-solar on our hands… Very well Shok. You are excused from this. Just never. EVER separate from the group! Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Shok is about to get up but is pushed down by the Tusken Raider next to him.

“We’re not done yet.” Two other Tusken Raiders drag in another beaten Tusken Raider. This time, this one’s tied up. “We caught this man, Twr'rk having affair with your prearranged wife. One month before your you become a man and your wedding. You know what you must do young Shok.”

The Tusken Raiders help get Shok on his feet and hand him his weapon, a spear. They drag Twr’rk in front of Shok and anticipate on what’s to come. Twr’rk is scared, shivering in fear. Shok lifts up his spear and deliberately missing only stabbing right next to Twr’rk’s head.

Shok kneels. “As I am not married yet. I’ll take Twr’rk’s place in the execution as he can marry my prearranged wife.”

The Tusken Raiders are appalled, the Chief is also not happy. “Death? You ask for death by our hands? No… Death, implies a right to be with our ancestors! You don’t get death. You get something far worse.”

In the morning. Both the suns barely rise passed the horizon. All the Tusken Raiders of the tribe are gathered. Shok is front of the entire tribe, all staring at him with disgust.

The chief approaches Shok. “Shok. You will walk across the endless path in front that the sands have formed in front of you until the desert itself decides to end you. If we ever see you again, we better not! NOW GO! Do not continue to taint our tribe!”

Shok walks. The Tusken Raider crowds roar in anger at him, his own family participates in on the disapproval. Only Twr’rk and Shok’s prearranged wife don't roar at him. Shok doesn’t react to any of it. He just walks. He continues to walk until he’s far enough way from the tribe and when the skies are a vibrant blue. Upon stopping, he chokes up a bit. Sobbing over his rejection from he knows as his family. This goes on for minutes. He eventually does calm down a little and has a realization.

“I’m free.” Shok speaks in common. He breathes heavily. “I’M FREE!!!” His shout echoes across the desert. The enthusiasm died down quick, crying again. “I’m… I’m free.”

He walks across, uncertain of his life. He knows people wants him dead. Who knows what will happen in the harsh deserts of Tatooine. Despite the fact he can live longer, this is consider a punishment worse than death for a Tusken Raider for a reason. As he ponders his predicament he sees something, faint in the distance, far at the end of the horizon. He sees something falling. Like a meteor or a falling space ship. When this falling thing is out of Shok’s sight, a loud sound booming sound follows. As if what was falling was strange form of lightning.

* * *

**The Freighter's Trunk**

It is pitch black. Everything is at a stand still. The only thing in motion within the trunk. Is gravity. That is until...

“At last! It finally stopped...” C-3PO relieved.

The doors of the trunk conspicuously opened.

“And it’s opened! We’re free BB-8!” C-3PO and BB-8 excitedly exit out the of the trunk to find out they’re on a desert planet. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! C-3PO screams as well as BB-8 having a loud elongated beep. Both frustrated that they’re on another desert planet. “Well,” C-3PO disappointed. “Here we go again… I don’t think we’re going to catch lightning in a bottle twice now BB-8. Let’s hope for the best” BB-8 beeps in agreement.

The dark figure from the trunk eyes light up again. It seems this time it also forms different shapes, like it has eyelids. They get stand up and walk out of the trunk. They see C-3PO and BB-8 walking into the desert.

“You think we’re in Tatooine? Well at least we know what planet we’re on, but how would that do us any good?” C-3PO asks. BB-8 responds in beeps. “Luke and Leia’s lightsabers are here? Well that’s an interesting piece of trivia, but contrary to the fact I have hands BB-8. I can’t hold a lightsaber! Even if I can, how is that supposed to help with us getting out of tatooine?"

“Hey.” the dark figure calls to the droids.

The droids turn around. “AAAAAAAH!” C-3PO screams. “You’re alive! Pleeeease don’t kill me! I’m too old to die. I mean I’m too pretty to die. I mean-”

“Relax! I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Y-You’re not?”

“I just… I just have a few questions.”

"Uh. Oh. Okay. Uuuuh. Uuuum. Go on then.”

“Well. Who are you two?”

“I am C-3PO, human-cyborg relations. And this is my counterpart, BB-8. We are a members of the Anti Republic-” BB-8 angrily beep sand rams into C-3PO’s leg. “I, uh, wasn’t supposed to tell you the last part. But, who are you?”

“I am Source Zero. Spelled S-R-C, dash, the number zero.” SRC-0 introduces themselves. “I am a droid.”

“A droid!? Well what is your creator?”

“I’m looking through my data. I don’t see anything.”

“Do you have a master?”

“No.”

“What are your primary functions?”

“It’s…" SRC-0 analyzes their data. Seems confused. "To be alive?”

“You don’t know your creator, you don’t have a master and your primary function is simply existing? Are you sure you are a droid?”

SRC-0 takes off their horns and places them on the ground. They take off their helmet revealing that under it, is a robotic exoskeleton. No flesh, bone or any organ in sight. They put back on the helmet and their horns.

“Well that sure settles it.” C-3PO not going to argue on whether or not SRC-0 is a droid. “But I must ask. Do you have any memory before we landed?”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“Does that include on what happened to the scientists on the freighter?”

“Yes.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did they all die?”

SRC-0 is hesitant to answer. But goes through with it. “The same way we got here... I used the force.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pronuciation of names.  
> \--Azaxy: As | Zacks-Ee  
> \--Aze: It's like the world "Blaze" without the "Bl"  
> \--Bastch: It's like the first syllable of "Bastion" but with a "Sh" sound at the end.  
> \--Hatal: Hate-Tahl. Yes. It's like the word "Fatal" but with more Hate.  
> \--Hi Kayzer: High | Kay-Zer  
> \--Jia: Geeah. It's technically Gee-Ah, but think of it as one syllable.  
> \--Kyz Banon: Keyz | Ban-Nin  
> \--Lunoa Osbay: Loo-No-Wah | Ahs-Bay.  
> \--Mors Fal: Morse | Fal. For further elaboration, Fal rhymes with "Pal"  
> \--Neelki Bre: Kneel-Key | Bree  
> \--Raw Pakehna: Rah | Pack-Eh-Nah  
> \--Radoo Vlacrul: Rah-Doo | Vlah-Cruel  
> \--Shok Cro'Rr: Shock | Crow-Er  
> \--SRC-0: Source | Zero.  
> \--Twr'rk: It's tower, then ark.


	3. Chapter 3

C-3PO feels tension around SRC-0. He still can’t wrap his head around the fact that a droid can have freewill. Especially being able to use the force for that matter. However, C-3PO doesn’t believe SRC-0 is evil as it would seem to be an accident that SRC-0 killed all of those scientists. That doesn't change the fact that C-3PO does believe SRC-0 is dangerous.

“Am I the only one of my kind?” SRC-0 asks.

C-3PO answers. “Well, while artificial intelligence constantly improves as droid development goes on. Even newer droids have certain restrictions to prevent true sapience. There have been attempts for droids to not obey masters, but the results of never produced an emulation of a true living person."

“You seem pretty sapient, C-3PO.”

“It is a common debate among scholars on whether a droid like the 3PO models; such as myself, are truly sapient. In fact, such philosophies regarding droid sapience led to some revolutions fighting for the freedom of droids. Though what the revolutionaries at the time don’t understand. Our sapience is limited. We are regarded as more or less, intelligent animals. We are capable on having genuine care for the people around us, as well as our own well being. But our agency is limited. We are made for certain specific and certain purposes. We just want admiration on what we do.”

SRC-0 thinks upon C-3PO’s explanation on droids agency. “I see. Though I do have a question: aren’t all living beings animals?”

“Oh most certainly! However, we do need to make some pretty important clarifications, especially during this trying times...” C-3PO elaborates:

“While it is true that all living beings are **Animals** we refer to animals as living creatures that are not sapient though still very much sentient. To refer to living beings that are sapient we refer to them as **People** or members of a **Society**. Currently there is a divide among society. While within New Republic laws, everyone is treated equally. Unfortunately, those laws that protects all of society aren’t acted upon. The government, businesses and the police have a bias towards Humans and Near-Humans. Those two groups are referred to as **Humanoids**. While most races within society are humanoid, they are referred to as **Aliens**. Regardless if they are naive to the planet in terms of their nationality or their ethnicity.”

SRC-0 doesn’t respond.

“Was my explanation not clear?” C-3PO asks.

“No, I get it.” SRC-0 answers. “It’s just, this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

“But that is how it's currently perceived!”

“I’m not doubting you. I'm not getting the point of this racism. Why do these people in power care so much about appearances?”

“It is far too complicated to give a simple answer. It is, well, pathetic, I do agree. That is what the Anti Republic are fighting for. They fight for the equality of all races.”

SRC-0 looks at the far desert and gentle breezes pushing across the sand. “I take it you want to go back to those Anti Republic people?”

“Well, yes, we were with one of them on the freighter. In fact, during the time we were in the trunk, you sent one of their leaders, Poe Dameron out into space… I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm in doing that.”

SRC-0 turns back to the droids. “Poe is there leader?” BB-8 responds. SRC-0 understands BB-8’s droidspeak. “I didn’t intend to have him drift off into space without a reason. I sensed… A woman. A young turquoise woman.”

“That must be Jia!” C-3PO clarifies. “Jia Guner! She’s a pilot for the Anti Republic!”

“Well, she was in pain. I felt her connection to the man in front of me. I don’t see why this person needed to be in pain, so I did what I can do to relieve the problem. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t wise of me to do so. Just, during that time, I felt like I was being awakened. Overwhelmed with being born…” BB-8 has a sad beep. “I am sorry. It is my fault for jeopardizing his life and separating you two from the Anti Republic. I'll make it to up the both of you get you two out of here.”

"That won’t be easy.” C-3PO states. “We’re on Tatooine. Droids are hated more than ever as more jobs become autonomous. If we’re going to get out, we’ll need a person that’s not only willing to get us out, but also be okay with The Anti Republic.” BB-8 beeps a possible solution. “To Ahch-To!? That’s still a risk you know! Jedi have restricted rights on Tatooine.”

“Who are the Jedi?” SRC-0 asks.

“You know the force, but don’t what a Jedi is?”

“Not my fault my creator neglected to leave such a common piece of information in my internal encyclopedia.”

BB-8 beeps. C-3PO agrees with it. “We’ll explain more when we get to shelter. BB-8 knows the exact location of a place we can stay. Tatooine is not the safest place to just stand around.”

“Alright, fair enough. Lead the way BB-8.”

BB-8 leads SRC-0 and C-3PO. Of course C-3PO lags behind, of which SRC-0 carries C-3PO over their shoulder with one arm. All much to C-3PO's annoyance.

* * *

It has been 12 hours since Shok’s exile. While the exile has only been less than day, Shok hasn’t eaten any food or drank any water for almost two days. He also hasn’t slept at all last night. All of this, with the unstable rough grounds of the desert for 12 hours straight, the only thing that isn’t bothering Shok is the intense heat and humidity that most people wouldn’t be able to bare for long periods of time. He slouches as he drags his feet across the desert. He, trips and falls to his knees. He shakes his head and quickly gets back up.

Little that Shok knows he’s being spotted by three human bandits in the far distance. They’re all on speeder bikes, filled with galactic empire iconography. The bikers all have face tattoos that that make their faces look like stormtrooper helmets. The leader of the group is a large, muscular man that has a giant number sixty-six on his forehead. The leader wears an imperial officer outfit, with the shirt sleeves torn off. He has giant “mini”-blaster strapped to his back. The other two wear stormtrooper torso armor, also without the sleeves. They also have a weapon strapped to their backs, but it’s the conventional Blaster rifles used by stormtroopers.

The leader analyzes Shok with his binoculars and laughs. “We founda stain boys!”

“Do we kill him on spot?” asked one of the bandits.

“Nah. He’s a lonely Tusken Raider. Let’s have a little fun with the degenerate.”

The there ride off to Shok, howling and screeching. Shok sees the bandits approaching. Unaware on who they are, he tries to get out of their way, but the bandits start circling around Shok. One of the bandits gets close to Shok and punches him i back of his head, knocking him to the ground.

* * *

**Coruscant**

Within Dexter’s Diner, the kitchen is frantic. It’s all led by Dexter Jettser’s son, Bohb Jettser. While he inherited the diner, he did not inherit his father’s jovial spirits. The reason for this, is the same reason why he has three arms as opposed to his father’s four. He was Rebel veteran of the Galactic Civil War. Mors works at the diner, cleaning the dishes with an old Rodian.

“HEY!” Bohb shouts at the two. “I need you to pick up the damn pace here!”

Mors rolls his eyes. Though, he doesn’t complain. It beats dealing his night job. The old Rodian turns to Mors speaking in the Rodian language. “What’s your thoughts on the Anti Republic protests?”

Mors answers in fluent Rodian. “I agree with most on what they stand for. But I think they’re at a losing battle. And honestly, I think their endgame is a bit much.”

“Not much of a Social Unitarian?”

“I think it’s nice on paper, I just don’t think you can get it to work.”

“HEY!” Bohb yells at them again. “I said pick up pace! Not pick the up chatter!” Mors and the Rodian clean faster. Bohb exits out of the kitchen.

“Anyway,” The older Rodian continues. “Your sister works at Gant Inc. Right?”

“Just as a front desk clerk, why?”

“I heard they’re going to do a Midi-chlorian scan over there today.”

“WHAT!? I thought the cops scanned all the businesses yesterday-OH! Right. I almost forgot. She already told me of this.”

“Well, she hasn’t ever showed signs on being force sensitive has she?”

“No. But… I dunno. Last night was rough. I’m gonna go over there. Just to see how’s she doing.”

What!? You can’t leave now!”

“Gant’s not too far. Just tell Bohb I’m using the bathroom.”

“He will check.”

“WELL. Tell him then I’m going to cut half off of _the good stuff_ he loves so much.”

Mors takes off his hair net and rushes out, taking the back door of the diner.

* * *

Outside of Gant Inc’s offices. Cops surround the office’s entrance with a large van parked in front of the building. Anti Republic protesters are there, blocking ground traffic, with any flying races do their best to block the traffic above them. The protesters are holding signs and are chanting “PIGS! LEAVE! PIGS! LEAVE!”

The demographics of these protesters have as many aliens as there are humanoids. There are also counter-protesters in the area, almost entirely human, with very few near-humans and almost no aliens. There aren’t any uniforms between the protesters, though the protesters tend to wear black and red, whereas the counter-protesters wear yellow and purple. One of the few alien counter-protesters, a Mon Calamari, was spotted by a human protester.

“Why are you siding with these jerks!?” The human asks. “They don’t care about you!”

“The New Republic brings proper order to the galaxy!” The Mon Calamari answers. “Anti Republic degenerates are just a bunch of rambunctious and lazy brats that don’t respect authority! I didn’t fight for the Resistance so you can tear apart our government!"

A Gran protester overhears the conversation and chimes in. “HEY! I also served the Resistance! I fought for a simple and peaceful life! A life where I can properly raise a family! Here I am, struggling to make ends meet! Me and my wife are working constantly, barely making enough to survive and enough time to spend with my son!”

“See! You have a job!” The Mon Calamari responds. “You don’t sound so oppressed to me!”

“I was unemployed for months!”

A human counter-protester also chimes in. “Not our problem that you suck at interviews, three eyes.”

The Gran gets angry wanting to attack the counter-protesting human, but was hold back by the other protesters telling him calm down while pointing at the cops looking at him. The Gran clam down, angry, but doesn’t go after the counter-protester.

Inside Gant Inc’s office, nicely dressed employees are lined up near the entrance, where a cop scans one employee at a time with a portable device, checking their midi-chlorian count. So far, none of the employees are considered to be force sensitive. Neelki is standing in front her boyfriend, Lunoa, who is a pink Twi’lek. Neelki breathes heavily, clearly nervous.

in front her boyfriend, Lunoa, who is a pink Twi’lek. She’s a bit nervous.

“You okay Neelki?” Lunoa asks.

“Yeah.” Neelki answers. “I know for certain I’m not force sensitive. But, just, I dunno. Seems all so foreboding.”

“Oh yeah. It is. Everyone’s one nervous. We’re all too left in the dark about what’s going to happen to the force sensitive people around here. Rumor has it, they’ll ship force sensitive users to a refuge camp in Dantooine.”

“Dantooine? Isn’t that a bit far?”

“Yeah. But it’s where the Jedi Restoration Order is located.”

“But what about Ahch-To?”

“There’s complications with that. Ahch-To’s Governor, Raw Pakehna, prevents any New Republic military set base within Ahch-To. Restricting themselves from the military also restricts them from any immigration services. While Ahch-To can legally take refuge, they have no power over on organizing refuge regarding Coruscant citizens and migrants. Which is what is supposedly done on Dantooine.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Nobody does. It's obvious that the only reason why Immigration is a military branch is solely to curb the New Jedi Order and hopefully they get more Jedi on the Jedi Restoration Order. The Jedi order that boot licks to the New Republic.”

Neelki sighs, not surprised at all to hear the New Republic would have manipulate the system like that for their own gain. “I really hope Aszaxy isn’t the G.U.P primary.” She groans.

“Oh god, let’s hope not.” Neelki is now at the front of the line. Lunoa holds her shoulders. “Aye. People with force sensitivity tend to already know they have it. You should be clear.” He kisses Neelki.

Neelki walks up to the cop. The officer uses the devices, hovering it over Neelki’s body. The device makes a beeping sound, though, the beeping means it’s done scanning. The cop looks at the scanner and walks over to another cop, whispering to one another.

Cop walks back to Neelki. “Mam. Please come with us.”

“I’m ‘fraid so mam.” He has his hand on Neelki’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

“H-hey! Maybe there’s a mistake! Scan again!”

“Mam. This thing is reliable, now move!” The cop pushes Neelki a bit roughly.

Lunoa approaches the cop. “Hey! Can we-”

Another cop gets in the way. “Sir, get back to the line.”

“Please! This is a mistake! I never used the force in my life-” Neelki resists which prompts the cop pushing to bring out a small stick from his pocket and electrocutes her with it.

Lunoa gets angry at this. “HEY! That’s my girlfriend-” He gets punched by the cop blocking him.

“I SAID STAY BACK!!!” the cop shouts.

The other cap drags Neelki outside into the van. The protesters boo at the cops. Mors is walking through the protesters, yet he’s close enough to what’s going on.

“No...” Mors tries to rush through the crowd. “NEELKI!!!”

The cop shoves Neelki into the back of the van. He gets aggressively and points at her “You don't resist me again! Understand, ya green bitch!?"

Meanwhile a counter-protester sucker punches a protester. The protester turns around and punches the wrong counter-protester causing a huge fight. The cops try to break it up, mostly aiming to arrest or beat the protesters rather than the counter-protesters.

The cop gets out of the van, seeing the huge fight. He goes to one of the cop’s guarding the building. “Okay, we scanned everyone, we’re heading out.”

Aren’t there still a few people left that needs to be scanned?” The other cop asks.

“Uh, no.” The cop lies. “We got them scanned already.” He gets back in the van, as does the other cop inside the building who punched Lunoa, hops in.

Mors struggles to get through the crowd, punching out a random guy, not sure if it was a protester or counter-protester. He manages to get through and sees the van flying off into the city.

“NO!” Mors shouts. He approaches the cop guarding the building. “Do you know where they’re going to be taken to?”

“I’m sorry kid, I’m not allowed to answer that.” The cop answers.

* * *

Mors runs all the way to junkyard where he took his sister last night. He gasps for air and staggers to the ship he built. He gets lays on top of its trunk, sobbing onto it. He tilts his head up, staring at the city in the horizon. One of the taller and more central buildings relative to Mors’s view,is a giant monitor showing a video of Chancellor Hi Kayzer. Mors’s tear-filled eyes are filled with rage.

He stands on top of his ship. “ **YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!”** His voice echoes throughout the barren wasteland. “YOU WILL PAY FOR ALL OF THIS!” He chokes up. “I will get my sister back! I WILL GET BACK AT ALL OF YOU!!!”

He looks down at the cockpit of his ship. He brings out a remote and uses it to open cockpit. He hops on and starts the ship up closing the cockpit again. The cockpit itself rotates upward and the ship launches from beneath. As it flies up, Mors rotates it so he has a forward view. Flying it exactly like it the Slave I.

Mors flies straight up intending to leave the planet. As he gets higher, eventually, three X-wings approach him. These X-wings are of the T-90 variety, they have a golden color and a smooth exterior. The smooth exterior is reminiscent of the N-1 starfighters the Naboo military used to use. The pilots themselves have the exact same uniform as the Anti Republic pilots, except they have yellow jumpsuits and blue vests.

The head of this group of X-Wings is a middle age human man with a black mustache. He tries to communicate to Mors. “This is Fox Amat of the New Republic Army. You do not have permission to leave this planet. Fly back immediately.”

Mors holds down a button his radio. “Nah.”

He turns off his ship’s power having it drop. The X-wings dodges the ship, and Mors quickly turns it back, having changing position of the cockpit so the ship itself is no moving in a horizontal position. It zooms pass the X-wings. The pilots are baffled.

Fox is shocked to see how the cockpit moves. “That cockpit. It’s still in the development! That man must of infiltrated our bases! GET HIM!”

The X-wings chase Mors’s ship. They managed to successfully fire at the sides of the ship. However, Mors doesn’t really care. He pushes the ship in reverse and sets the ship to go through hyperspace.

“Keep firing-” Fox commands but he and the others are pushed back by the force of Mors’s ship entering into hyperspace. “Grr…!!! Doesn’t matter! He’s fairly close to our hyperspace trackers. We’ll get him!”

“Just so you know, sir.” One of the X-wing pilots warns. “You’re probably not going to get many men to help you currently.”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I know. Most of the security will be put on the Senate Building for the upcoming debate. However we can’t just let government secrets escape under our noses!”

* * *

**Tatooine**

Shok is punched by one of the bandits.He gets pushed back on to another bandit who gets kicked in back by him. As he falls he’s grabbed by the bandit who kicked him, holding him as the leader approaches him.

“Kidnapped any women as of late?” said the Leader as he punches Shok. “Kidnapped any… Human women!?” He punches Shok again. “You Tusken Raiders always sicken me. Truly the biggest degenerates in the galaxy. Thankfully, our current chancellor is taking care of trash like you. Though. I hate how he’s a little nice on those Xtalis people. Eh. Whatever. I’ll just vent my frustrations out on ya.” The leader continues to viciously punch Shok.

Not to far from them, SRC-0 and the droids are walking by. They notice the bandits, and BB-8 quickly hides behind SRC-0, with C-3PO does the same. SRC-0 just stands there.

“SRC-0… We need to move.” C-3PO urges.

“I’m not walking away from this.”

“You’re going to fight them!? Do you even have weapon!?”

“Apparently, I do.”

A lightsaber handle comes out of SRC-0’s right palm. It seems to stick to SRC-0’s hands like a magnet. They hold on to the handle and turns it on, revealing to be a red lightsaber.

“A RED LIGHTSABER!?!?!” C-3PO is shocked to see.

SRC-0 rushes over to the bandits. They turn around and see SRC-0, the leader stops beating up Shok and walks up to SRC-0.

“Well...” The leader is amused. “A Sith lord eh? I’m not usually a fan of you Jedi types, as you can tell.” He points to his sixty-six tattoo. “But. I take it you want in on the fun. You must hate them Tusken Raiders, eh?"

SRC-0 doesn’t respond. They walk up to Shok and SRC-0 pushes his head aside, stabbing the bandit holding Shok in the head. Shok stumbles down, free from the bandit's grasp. The other bandit brings out his blaster rifle and aims to shoot at SRC-0. However, just right before the bandit fires his blaster, SRC-0 flanks the bandit, slashing his chest. They turn to the bandit leader, who already has his mini-blaster out and fires it. SRC-0 is hit by the barrage of blaster bolts, for what seems like a minute. The mini-blaster stops firing from overheating. SRC-0 is laying on the ground with their eyes not lighting up. The bandit leader walks up to SRC-0, pretty certain they’re dead. Steam comes out of SRC-0’s body from the blaster, seemingly being the only visible damage done.

The bandit leader breathes heavily. “Damn force user-” The bandit leader just realized the lightsaber is turned off.

SRC-0’s upper body pops up, with his eyes lighting up shortly after. They turn their head to the bandit the leader. The leader screams in horror, but then just suddenly stops. He looks down, seeing that SRC-0 stabbed him in the chest with their lightsaber. SRC-0 takes their lightsaber out of the leader's chest, which then then the proceeds the leader to fall to the floor dead. SRC-0 gets up and turns off their lightsaber, putting it back in their palm. They see Shok laying down on the sandy floor, still breathing, but passed out. They pick him up, carrying him to the droids.

“C-3PO? Are you alright?” SRC-0 asks, noticing that C-3PO is startled.

“UH. Yeah. I am alright.” C-3PO answers, tense about what just happened and SRC-0 having a red lightsaber. He notices Shok. “OH. SRC. That’s a Tusken Raider.”

“Yeah? What about it?"

“Well. Just so you know. He’s probably not going be the most thankful of you rescuing him. They’re known to hate outsiders.”

“Well, I can’t blame him after what happened. I’m still taking him with us to the shelter.”

C-3PO is wary. “A-alright. Just know, I’m not going to close to him if he wakes up.” C-3PO looks at BB-8. “Come on BB-8. Continue leading the way.”

Even BB-8 is wary. Having the same concerns as C-3PO. At the very least it’s clear SRC-0 is not of the Empire or the First Order, if that’s any consolidation. Though, even BB-8 is aware that you don't need to be a Sith to be a Dark Jedi. Regardless, SRC-0 still seems to have a good nature and continues the to lead the group to Lars’s moisture farm.

* * *

**Ahch-To**

As the sun sets at the beach, Rey continues her meditation above the ocean. She can grasp SRC-0’s presence, but every time she does, she’s met with loud static and a bang and gets another headache. She’s been trying to track SRC-0 down since her talk with Zorii. She heads to the shore, sitting on a giant rock, figuring out what she's doing wrong or how to approach this situation.

“Hey.” A familiar voice speaks to Rey. She turns to where it came from and smirks. It’s Ben Solo, now a force ghost. “I see you’re having some trouble.”

“Hey Ben.” Rey greets. “I’m certain you know what happened to your mother?”

“Yes. She now peacefully rests within the force netherworld.”

“You’re doing alright?”

“Yeah, but, don’t worry about me. She was the best teacher anyone can have. My only concern is if I can live up to her standards.”

“Even if you can’t Ben, the help is always appreciated. Plus, it’s always an honor to speak to those who have passed. Especially from you. Your mother will not want you to feel pressured by her reputation. She would want you to do your best.”

“Thank you Rey. You're right. She never wanted to hold herself to a high regard and wouldn't want me to be her successor, she would want me to be sage in my own way. So, Rey Skywalker. As you helped me get out of the dark side. I will owe you my wisdom. I shall help you with your current problem: you seem to be struggling to identify a being that’s naturally strong with the force.”

“Yeah. It’s just that… We ever had anything like this before. This entity- It’s so odd. It’s hard to explain it. None of the other Jedi Mentors can spot it or get any further analysis.”

“You’re brute forcing it. The force is not a battering ram for the walls of the conscious.”

“I know. I probably shouldn't be doing that. It’s just, I’m starting to think whatever this entity is. It seems to be both alive and dead.”

"Perhaps that is the problem. You’re making too many assumptions on what is a living person. We all can be ignorant at times. I was ignorant that I was worth saving… I thought when Kylo Ren consumed me, I can never get out of him. Anakin felt the same way. Nothing in the universe is stagnant, Rey. We don’t stay infants, we become adults. Our beliefs, our morals. Our idea of good and evil constantly changes. Work with the force to accept this change in perspective of what a person is rather than ascribing to your own idea on what a person is."

Rey takes in what Ben Solo is saying. “Would you say what I’m doing, is essentially still calling you Kylo Ren, when you’re Ben Solo?”

“You’re getting the right idea. Except, pretend I was born with the name Kybo Ren. When I joined the First Order, I became Kylo Ren. When I leave the First Order I gave myself a new name. Ben Solo. Which is my true name?"

“I think I get what you’re saying… I would say Ben Solo cause it’s the name you want to be referred to. But I’m certain this goes beyond just giving yourself an identity.”

“Do you feel you have the right to carry the name ‘Skywalker?’”

“If I was never aware Luke and Leia never minded. No. Even with their approval, I do sometimes feel like ditching the Skywalker as my surname and just call myself Rey, without any surname. Not to say I’m entirely against Palpatine. I respected that my mother did her best to protect me. It’s the same exact reason as to why I don’t want to hold my father’s maiden name either. It’s nothing against them, I just never had a strong enough connection to either of them to warrant their surnames.”

“You never used the Skywalker surname for exploitation. The value of names are free, the only cost is honesty. Names are only a part of one’s overall right to the agency of their identity."

Rey ponders a bit. She tilts her head and looks to Ben. “I believe I understand what you’re saying. I must be open minded on my perception of what constitutes as a person. No matter how abstract it might seem.”

“Exactly. If you want to find this mysterious entity, I must give you one more bit of advice. Remember what my mother said: never underestimate a droid.”

Ben vanishes. As Rey felt like she understood everything. Now she’s confused again. Of all things, why did Ben bring that up? While Ben Solo is a kinder person now compared to when he was Kylo Ren. He’s still mostly humorless. Everything he said straight to the point without any indication of irony. The last piece of advice must be relevant. Rey takes that advice seriously and tries to figure out its relevance in regards of what Ben was saying on a person's agency in their identity. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a bit of a mistake on Chapter 2. When the Tusken Raider Chief mentioned "Dead-Hand" he was clearly referring to Anakin Skywalker. However, Anakin didn't lose his hand yet when slaughtering the Tusken Raiders. Hence I went back and edited Chapter 2, renaming "Dead-Hand" to "Blue-Solar"

The suns begin to set as the droids make it to the old moisture farm. SRC-0 takes Shok to the lower level area of the farm that’s connected to the kitchen. BB-8 is at the edge up the upper area beeping at SRC-0.

“Wait, two lightsabers are around here” SRC-0 not quite getting BB-8’s suggestion. They approach the large moisturizer in the center of the area. “That can wait. We need to get this man some water.” They analyze the moisturizer. “Now how do you work this thing?”

BB-8 instructs SRC-0 on how to use the moisturizer. Afterward, SRC-0 gathers some shrubs and lays them in front of Shok. SRC-0 brings out their lightsaber and uses it to gently tap on the shrubs, creating a small fire. They then pick up a large bowl of water and kneels next to Shok, pouring water through the mask the mouth piece of Shok’s mask. Shok slowly wakes up and harshly grabs the bowl of water and drinks the whole thing. He tosses the bowl aside and notices SRC-0. They jump back and begins to panic, shouting Tusken. Not sure what’s going on. C-3PO is around the lower level and nervously walks forward.

“Hey!” C-3PO shouts in Tusken. “We’re not going to hurt you!”

Shok calms down and speaks in common. “O-oh… I uh, should of figured…” He looks to C-3PO. “For a 3PO droid, your Tusken is pretty fluent. Built around here?”

“You can talk the common language!? A-Also no! I was built from Alderaan.” BB-8 beeps in confusion assuming R2-D2 gave back C-3PO’s memory already. “Built here? I think I would remember if I was built by Anakin Skywalker. Plus you know R2’s memory restoration is quite poor!”

"Uuuuh.” Shok is take a back by the droids arguing. “Anyway, yeah, I’m one of few who can speak the outsider's language. But. I take it you guys saved me.”

“Well,” C-3PO turns his head to SRC-0. “They did.”

Shok turns to SRC-0 and bows. “T-thank you…”

SRC-0 is a bit awkward by the gesture. “Well. It’s nothing.”

Shok stops bowing. “Nothing? Don’t you know that Tusken Raiders are hated by just about everybody?”

“No. How should I put this? I was only born about two weeks ago...”

“What?”

“I’m a droid.”

“A droid!? Well uh, were you sent by anyone?”

“I’m not sent by anyone. My origins… They’re complicated. I might have free will.”

“Free will? Man this is too much to take in right now. Look, how about we start with names. What’s yours?”

“SRC-0. Yours?”

“My name is Shok Cro’Rr. I'm an exiled Tusken Raider.” He turns to the other droids. “Who are you two weirdos?”

“Weirdos-!” C-3PO offended by how rudely Shok asked the question. “I am C-3PO I’ll have you know! Human-cyborg relations. This is my counterpart BB-8. Call us weirdos, when you can speak common. Which, speaking of, how were you taught the language?”

“I sneak into the movie theaters within a lot. They’re all in the common language so I eventually got the gist of it. But are you guys like SRC-0?”

“Oh no, SRC-0 is a very special case. We are owned by both the Anti Republic and The New Jedi Order.”

“Are those Anti Republic guys and the Jedi here?”

“Well, no, it’s quite complicated. We got separated.”

“Yeah...” SRC-0 elaborates. “I accidentally took them here to Tatooine.”

“Look,” Shok proposes, “Just tell me about it tomorrow morning. You guys look like you got a long day ahead of you and I’m still trying to get over my exile and no. I will not tell you about it.”

BB-8 rolls up to SRC-0 bringing up the buried lightsabers. “Why should I care about a new lightsaber? I already got one.”

C-3PO elaborates. “Well, you see, you have a red lightsaber. That’s a weapon of the Dark Jedi.”

“Oh… Dark Jedi are bad right?”

“W-Well, yes.”

“Ah okay… So uh, why?”

“Why???”

“Yes. Why is it specifically a weapon of the Dark Jedi?”

“Because the red lightsaber crystal… Is synthetic!”

“Oooh… But why is it being synthetic a bad thing? We’re synthetic, are we not?”

“Well, yes, but uh. Well, y- it’s uh. The… Um… Okay I don’t know why, but no offense SRC, when you carry around a red lightsaber. You look like a Sith Lord. As untrustworthy as they get.”

“What’s a Sith Lord? Are they the Dark Jedi equivalent of a Jedi Knight?”

“The Sith is a group that comprises of Dark Jedi. You can be a Dark Jedi and not be a part of the Sith. Just the most famous Dark Jedi tend to be a part of the Sith.”

"Sheesh, I thought I knew everything you told me from that walk."

"The Jedi have a long and complicated history."

“Sidious is a Sith guy, right?” Shok asks.

“Yes. He’s one the most notorious ones that directly corrupted Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader and corrupted Ben Solo into Kylo Ren via proxy of Snoke.”

“Of course I know of Sidious’s apprentice, granted I didn't know his real name was Anakin. I heard of Kylo Ren, but I didn’t know Sidious had anything to do with him. Granted, I know very little of Kylo Ren, just know he's like Darth Vader and he's now dead. But I do want to point out, not all of the- uh, I guess Dark Jedi use a red lighsaber. Sometimes they’ll use other colors.”

“That is true.” C-3PO agrees.

“You seem like you know a bit about the Jedi, Shok.” SRC-0 comments.

“Eh, just from hearsay and some movies with them. One of the most famous tales among Tusken Raiders is the story about what I believe is a Jedi by the name of Blue-Solar. A story about a human man who wielded a blue lightsaber attacked everyone after the tribe kidnapped a woman from a farm just like this. He killed the men, the women, and the children. It’s a story teaching us about fairness and empathy. Do not kidnap anyone defenseless, even an outsider. Or Blue-Solar will kill you…”

“Well that’s a very- uh, violent story.” SRC-0 comments.

“Yeah, I’m not a fan of it. It keeps from pointless kidnapping but I feel they only don’t kidnap because of Blue-Solar and not because it’s the right thing to do y’know?”

“Yeah. I feel you… Since you’re exiled from your tribe. Do you have any idea on where you’re heading?”

“Honestly. I had no path. Just waiting for the desert to kill me. In legend, when the desert kills you don’t share the afterlife with the ancestors. Your existence is wiped. If anyone says my name, I become a demon, bringing forth a curse to my tribe.”

“Do you believe it?”

Shok pauses, reluctant to answer. “Y-Yeah. I do.”

“You seem like a good person Shok. Are you sure want to continue you want the _desert_ kill you?”

“OH hell no, I was actually going to ask if I can join you guys. I do owe you my life after all since you saved me. No one really ever saves a Tusken Raider. Plus y’know, I think help you guys problem out. Whatever it is.”

“Sure thing.” SRC-0 turns their head to C-3PO. “Though, I don't think you owe me your life though. I just want to know more about you. What do you say C-3PO?”

C-3PO is reluctant to answer. BB-8 rams into his leg. “I’m not trying to be racist BB! I’m well aware that Shok is a nice young man. It’s just that it will make it harder to get out of Tatooine. But… It’s the right thing to do… I also accept you coming with us Shok.”

“Thanks you guys.” Shok yawns. “I never thought I’d meet anyone so kind...”

As Shok falls asleep, SRC-0 gets up and taking out the fire by stomping on it.

* * *

The next morning, BB-8 leads the group to where Rey bury the lightsabers. As they follow BB-8, C-3PO explains everything Shok about how they got here.

“So,” Shok trying to get what C-3PO is saying, “SRC-0 is really strong with the force and did a bunch of stuff by accident.”

“Exactly!” Affirms C-3PO.

“Pretty much.” SRC-0 confirms.

“Well, if you can use the force,” Shok runs over to a rock near by “do the thing where you like move the rock to uuuh,” he points to BB-8. “The little guy!”

“BB-8?” SRC-0 asks.

“Yeah, him!”

“Why exactly move the rock near BB-8? Wouldn’t just moving the rock prove that I have the force.”

Shok rushes to SRC-0. “SRC, this may come as a surprise. But I’m an artist. I want to make movies one day like the ones I see on the big screen! The subtle details are the most important. That rock in front of BB-B.”

“BB-8.”

“Yeah that guy, tells us about BB-8 and tells us about you. The struggle, the aging, the fearing, the strife, that we truly are in a society.”

SRC-0 scans around their surroundings of the barren desert and turns to C-3PO. “You sure the water was safe to drink?”

“AH of course! A droid would have trouble time understanding art… But can you can please move the rock though? I never seen the force before.”

SRC-0 stares at the rock for an awkward amount long time.

“Maybe you should, use your arm, or something?”

SRC-0 points their arm with their palm flat. Nothing happens.

“Did it move? I think I saw it wiggle!”

“I guess I… I guess I forgot.”

“YOU FORGOT!? Ah man... Well. Maybe it'll come back to ya!" 

“Perhaps you should join The New Jedi Order at Ahch-To.” C-3PO suggests. “I’m certain they’ll be fascinated with you. In fact, you should join too, Shok.”

“But I’m not a Jedi.” Shok remarks.

“I’m sure they’ll take you as refuge. I’m quite close friends with one of the Jedi Mentors.”

“Hm. You think they’ll really accept me?”

“They’re known for their tolerance. I know for certain Rey will! She'll never decline anyone based on race!”

BB-8 bounces indicating they’re at the spot. SRC-0 and Shok dig the area for a solid thirty minutes. BB-8 asks SRC-0 if they found the lightsabers.

“No.” SRC-0 answers. “How deep were they buried?”

BB-8 panics and rolls down the hole SRC and Shok dug up. He tries to dig by rolling aggressively at the sand.

“It’s been ten years since they were buried BB!” C-3PO comments. “They’re probably far deeper by now.” BB-8 has a bit of a disappointed beep. C-3PO looks to SRC-0. “Just don’t bring out your lighsaber, okay SRC?”

“Not like a blue or green lightsaber is going to help much.” Shok gets out of the hole. “We’re gonna need a human willing to help us. Do you guys got any credits?”

SRC-0 picks up BB-8 and gets out of the hole. “No.”

“Of course not!” C-3PO answers.

“Well,” Shok brings out a few credits from his pocket. “I got some. But it ain’t gonna be enough to bribe a pilot to get us to that Ahch-To planet or the Anti Republic base. Especially since I think the military around here guards the skies. So, we need to do a little smooth talking. I’ll take you guys to Tatooine’s biggest city! Soluun! We’re bound to find a sucker that even BB-C can trick!”

BB-8 angrily beeps at Shok.

“BB-8, Shok.” SRC-0 corrects.

“Ah, sorry.” Shok apologizes. “Not good with names.”

Shok leads the group through the desert. They’re enter a rocky terrain, near by a canyon. In the skies, Mors’s ship; in a horizontal position, is diving down. It flies over the group’s heads, making a rough landing near them. The group gets near the ship, hiding behind the rocks. Mors gets out of the ship and angrily kicking it, resulting in hurting his own foot.

Shok looks to SRC-0. “Heh heh heh…. Just our luck!”

The group gets out of hiding and approaches Mors. As they get close, Mors turns around and brings out his blaster, pointing at them.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Mors panics. The group steps back with their hands up. “Stay back! I’m a mean stone cold killer! I got the moves!” Mors fancily twirls his blaster. “Don’t you mess with me! I-” Mors drops his blaster. He gets embarrassed and a bit scared. Noticing they’re not trying to take his blaster away, Mors picks it up. “Uh.” Mors points his blaster at them again. “What do you want?”

“We’re not going to hurt you.” Shok assures. “We’re just going to exploit your problem to our benefit.”

“Yeah, exactly.” SRC-0 agrees.

C-3PO is peeved as he turns to Shok and SRC-0. “Is the word _presentation_ not a part of your vocabulary.”

“OH!” Shok gets a bit excited. “Is it like a featured presentation!?”

“Ooh...”

“Regardless. I know damn well he ain’t from around here.”

“True.” Mors admits. “But who’s to say I need help from you jerks?”

“You’re in Tatooine. The price of help is credits. However, you’re in luck. We don’t need credits.”

“Exactly.” SRC-0 explains: “We just ask you to take us out of Tatooine and preferably take us to Ahch-To.”

“Ahch-To!?” Mors is baffled. “Do you know how far that is? At that point, I better get paid in cash. Plus I can get my ship fixed!” Mors opens his trunk. “I just need fuel, a better hyperdrive motivator for my ship, tools to repair my balancers and also a signal jammer.”

“A signal jammer?” Shok amused. “I wonder why you want that?”

“Look man! That’s none of your business.”

“Hey. I don’t have to know what crime you committed to know you’re a wanted criminal.”

Mors closes the trunk. He walks up to Shok. “Alright. You’re gonna get the cops on my ass? Get a nice reward out of that?”

“Wow. You really are a newbie aren’t ya? You really think a Tusken Raider such as myself is going to be able to snitch to anyone?”

“Look. I know a thing or two about Tatooine. Mostly its businesses and Soluun. I don’t know much about who lives here.”

“We’re not going to take you the police.” SRC-0 reassures. “We’re all outcasts. Tusken Raiders aren’t treated well on Tatooine and I’m a droid without a master. We’re all not the most appreciated by society.”

“Well that’s all nice and dandy! But just how you know I’m not a murderer hmm? Ever thought of that.”

“Well if you’re a murderer...” Shok quickly rushes behind Mors and grabs his arm stretching it behind his back.

“OW! HEY!” Mors shouts in pain.

“Give me a good reason why I shouldn’t kick your ass!?”

“Bite me!” Shok tightens his trip and continues to push. “AAAGHK!”

“Well if you really are a murderer, I guess I’m just gonna have to kill you.”

“This is a bit much don’t you think?” C-3PO is concerned.

“Did you murder anyone innocent?” SRC-0 asks.

“That is a good point.” Shok realizes, lightening his grip. “Who did you murder?”

“ **I’M NOT A MURDERER!** ” Mors confesses. “I ILLEGALLY WENT THROUGH CORUSCANT’S ATMOSPHERIC BORDER! NOW WILL YOU LET ME GO!?!?"

Shok lets Mors go. “Coruscant you say?”

Mors rubs his arm. “I’m not of the upper class. I’m from the underworld.”

“I seen the movies. I know Coruscant isn’t completely uppity.”

“Well, I’m not completely ignorant of Tatooine either. I know Soluun is the called the heaven of electronics… Or hell depending on who you asked. I’ll just be on my way!” Mors walks away from the group.

“Other way dude.” Shok points to the massive city in the far distance.

Mors turns around. “ALRIGHT FINE! You jerks can help me! I’m not guaranteeing you I can get you guys to drop off at Ahch-To though.”

“You can just drop us off at Naboo!” C-3PO suggests. “I’m quite well known there, we just can’t get in contact with our masters in Tatooine, but we can certainly do it on Naboo.”

Mors looks at Soluun, noticing the gray clouds over it as well as the foggy haze surrounding it. “Those aren’t clouds. That’s smog.” Mors goes to his ship, opens the cockpit and brings out a mouthpiece similar to what the Kel Dor wear and puts it in his pocket. He gets out, closes the cockpit. “Are we in one of the planet’s colder seasons by the off chance?”

“No. It’s been hottest year yet.”

“Ah.” Mors sighs. “I guess the rumors are true, Coruscant is hotter than Tatooine… The name’s Mors Fal by the way.” Everyone else introduces their names. “Kay. Also who’s gonna look over the Slave Duo?”

"The Slave-what?" Shok confused by the name.

"That's the name of my ship."

"Oh."

“BB-8 should be able to do it!” C-3PO nominates.

“Who?” Mors not knowing who C-3PO is talking about until BB-8 rolls toward him and beeps. “You serious?”

“BB-8 and communicate to me at a far distance. If something happens to your ship, he’ll notify us immediately.”

“Eeeh… Sure. It’s a pretty ugly lookin ship, I don’t think many are gonna want to steal it. BUT. Fine.” Mors turns to Shok. “If you know the city so damn well, lead the way!”

“Why certainly!” Shok leads the group but is halted by SRC-0.

“Wouldn’t you have problems traversing due to being a Tusken Raider?” SRC-0 worries.

“Oh, right. I almost forgot.” Shok pulls his hood over his head. “Let’s go!”

Shok leads the group to Soluun, as BB-8 watches the Slave Duo. It’s quite a long walk, about 9 mile or 15 kilometer distance. It’s a mostly a tense silence due to Shok and Mors not really liking each other. C-3PO decides to give SRC-0 a basic run down of history going from the Republic’s conflict with the Trade Federation to the battle on Exogol. C-3PO was always a good story teller, to the point where even Mors is intrigued, as he never went to school to learn about this and Shok is also interested, but more so with the parts of the Galactic Civil War. He’s the most engaged at the part where Luke Skywalker encounters Darth Vader on Cloud City.

“Luke hangs for dear life on the pole, with only one hand.” C-3PO narrates. “There, Luke learns a truth of his lineage. A truth that he never wanted to bare… Darth Vader told him that he’s his father.”

“ **WHAT!?!** ” Shok is surprised to hear. “I thought Obi-Wan told Luke that Vader killed his father!?”

“Shok, I don’t think he was being literal.” SRC-0 is certain. “Plus, we already know this.”

“Huh?”

“You know. When Padmé gave birth to Luke and Leia?”

“You should pay closer attention to these things Shok! Think of how hard it was for R2-D2 and his old friend U-3PO to witness.” C-3PO laments, believing any moments with him during that the Trade Federation conflict were U-3PO.

“Wait. Leia and Luke are siblings?”

“Did you not pay any attention before the fourth arc of the story?” Mors astounded at Shok’s attention span. "Does it occur to you that it makes no sense for the story to start in a middle of a war!?" 

“Oh yeah.” Shok remembers. “I lost interest when 3PO said ‘trade routes.’”

"I didn't think the war with the Trade Federation was that boring." SRC-0 comments. 

C-3PO continues the story, going up to the part where Darth Vader threw Darth Sidious into the pit, Anakin having his final words with his son, how Lando Calrissian and Wedge Antilles blew up the second Death Star and finishing it off with Anakin Skywalker’s funeral on Endor.

“Wow.” Shok was impressed, getting teary-eyed over it. “What a beautiful story. You can’t top an ending like that!”

“Well, I’m not quite finished yet.” C-3PO corrects.

“You can tell us later.” Mors puts on his mouthpiece. “We’re here.”

The city of Soluun is a not as large of a city as what Coruscant has, but still a massive sprawling metropolis. It really doesn’t feel like Tatooine at all, as the ocean of sand becomes a land of concrete and cement. The city is claustrophobic with people, it would make a crowd of a thousand feel empty. The senses are overloaded with the mostly pop music and rap, or the shouts of people selling at their stands. The honking of the speeder’s horns is constant, it drowns out quickly, accepting it as a part of the ambiance.

“Something tells me…” C-3PO suspects. “Mos Eisley is not far off.”

“Mos Eisley?” Shok finds C-3PO curious to mention. “It’s a part of Soluun. In fact, we’re not that far from it. Didn't you have a bad time over there?”

“Oh! I want to stay as far away from there as possible. I just didn’t know Mos Eisley was assimilated into Soluun.”

“They were separate?”

A random civilian comments. “You must be a real old droid. Mos Eisley wasn’t a single town for the past 30 years.”

“Yeah, I heard about how a lot of city projects were getting placed across the galaxy during that time.” Mors recalls. “So. Shok. Know any good stores that can get on what I need?”

“Yeah.” Shok answers. “We’re near the sector where they sell all a lot of electronics.”

“So this is a city?” SRC-0 marvels around their surroundings.

“Yes, this is a city!” Mors patronizes. He looks to Shok. “Is this guy for real?”

“Man, be nice.” Shok defends SRC-0. “They’re only two weeks old. They’re learning.”

As they continue to walk, merchants harass the group with trinkets and items, all of them declined. A droid selling drugs keeps harassing C-3PO through out the entire walk. Eventually the get to the sector Shok was talking about and entered into the largest building. It is a cramped building, with many different vendors selling different types of electronics at different costs. The group explores the entire building, observing what’s being sold.

ors is impressed. “They got everything I need here! The problem is. It’s too damn expensive! I only got a hundred credits!”

“Yeah.” Shok notices. “If you want to get anything here, you got to bargain.”

Mors looks at C-3PO. “3PO. You gotta some reputation considering all the stuff you have done!”

“Well.” C-3PO is trying to be humble. “I have a little bit of notoriety for a droid.”

“Look. Tell that guy selling the hyperdrive motivator that you’re _the_ _e_ C-3PO and we need it for an emergency or somethin” Mors pushes C-3PO to the counter where the guy is selling a bunch of hyperdrive motivators.

“Uh. Hi.” C-3PO greets the merchant. “I am C-3PO. I don’t want to brag or anything. But you might of heard of me. I used to be Luke Skywalker’s droid.”

“OH! Really? You’re _thee_ C-3PO?” The merchant seems impressed. “Like all the other supposed C-3POs?” The merchants points to a bunch of C-3PO duplicates walking around nearby.

One of the duplicates even speaks: “AYE BADABING BADABOOM! I’M C-3PO! IMMA WALKIN!”

The real C-3PO turns to Mors. “It looks like we’re not going to get the parts that easily mister Fal.”

The four walk out. Mors looks around. “Man! There’s gotta be a quick way we gotta make money without stealing and causing a scene!”

The four notice a huge crowd line up. They approach it, seeing a loud Yuzzum standing next to a giant four armed purple reptilian man with four robotic arms.

“ **STEP RIGHT UP! STEP RIGHT UP!** ” The Yuzzum shouts. **“IF ANY OF YOU CAN DEFEAT THE 500 YEAR UNDEFEATED CHAMPION OF TERÄS KÄSI: DON OUROBOROS!!! YOU CAN WIN UP TO FIVE THOUSAND STINKIN CREDITS! WILL ANYONE BRAVE UP TO TAKE ON THE DON!** ”

A huge fat yet incredibly muscular Lasat raises his hand. “I’ll take this punk on!”

“ **IT’S A 100 CREDIT ADMISSION!** ”

The Lasat pays the Yuzzum and puts up his dukes to Don Ouroboros. The Lasat rapidly punches Don, which he just responds with a yawn and flicks the Lasat, sending him flying over the crowd of people. The Lasat crashes through a window of the nearest building. Mors analyzes Shok and shakes his own head, doubting he can take on this Don Ouroboros.

He looks at SRC-0. “Aye. SRC-0?”

“Yeah?” SRC-0 responds.

“Can you fight?”

“Yeah.”

Mors tries to lift SRC-0’s arm. “Damn. Is your arm entirely made of beskar!?”

“According what my internal data says, it's a type of iron like beskar.”

“Look. Kick this guy’s ass. I will take you straight to Ahch-To. Can you do that?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t lose this! I only got 100 credits on me. If you lose to this… Ho oh oh...”

“What will happen if SRC-0 doesn’t win?” Shok asks.

“… JUST WIN PLEASE!”

“Ah ha ha ha! Don’t worry Mors! SRC-0 saved my life!”

“But he used a lightsaber to do that!” C-3PO mentions.

“They will win! Will you SRC?”

SRC-0 doesn’t answer and walks up to the Yuzzum. They turn to Mors. “Are you just gonna stand there or are you going to pay up?”

Mors shrugs and walks up to the Yuzzum. “Any rules for this shindig?”

“ **NOT MANY**.” The Yuzzum explains. “ **JUST NO DROID. NO JEDI.** ”

“Good. I’m neither of those things.” SRC-0 lies.

Mors hands the 100 credits to the Yuzzum. “We’re ready.”

“ **AH HA HA HA** ” The Yuzzum accepts the credit. “ **HOPE YOU ENJOY HAVING A HUMILIATING LOSS! _AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!_** ”

SRC-0 gets on the stage. They stare up at Don Ouroboros, not looking impressed with SRC-0.

The Yuzzum climbs on a small pole that contains a bell. He head butts the bell three times. “ **ALRIGHT!** _**FIGHT!!!**_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to do something a little fun. I want to put in my ideal cast for my OCs in this one. Star Wars is a film franchise so it's only natural we have dream casts. Including the natural desire on owning Sega Dreamcasts. Anyway this might be updated in later chapters with more characters.
> 
> -SRC-0  
> Voice: Casey Mongillo  
> Physical: Eric Oram
> 
> -Shok Cro'Rr  
> Voice: Khary Payton  
> Physical: Tatchakorn "Tony Jaa" Yeerum
> 
> -Mors Fal  
> Mackenyu Arata
> 
> -Raw Pakehna  
> Christopher Walken
> 
> -Kyz Banon  
> Michael Dorn
> 
> -Hi Kayzer  
> Alec Baldwin
> 
> -Radoo Vlacrul  
> Christopher Eccleston


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do want to note, this fan fiction being 15 chapters isn't definite, it's a good guess. It's for certain going to be more than 10 chapters, but less than 20. I do have an outline for the fan fic, so it's not like I have no plan or this is entirely improved.
> 
> BUT since, we're 5 chapters in with 22,000+ words! If you have any criticisms with the fan fiction, please! Leave a comment! Any type of feedback is greatly appreciated!

The crowd chants Don Ouroboro’s name wanting to see SRC-0 annihilated. The only part of SRC-0’s body that has moved is their head. Following Ouroboro’s movements, as he analyzes SRC-0, impressed that they show no fear. Ouroboros laughs as he, takes a few steps back and lunges out a punch with his upper left hand. At the last minute SRC-0 jumps back and kicks Ourooboros in the chest. This gets Ouroboros to grunt in pain, grabbing hold of his chest. He laughs again, impressed that he has found an opponent that small that can hit hard. He doesn’t waste time, he sends in a flurry of punches towards SRC-0. Each punch thrown, SRC-0 casually dodges with only making slight tilts of their torso. When Ouroboros punched the ground with his upper left hand, SRC-0 runs up along the arm, and when on his shoulders they leap up kicking Ouroboros in the back of his head. SRC-0 lands behind the giant.

Crowd goes wild, going wild at what they’re seeing. They just might witnessed the 500 year undefeated reign come to a close. Ouroboros rubs his head a bit and is starting to get frustrated. He turns around, swiping his lower right elbow at SRC-0, but SRC-0 just leaps and kicks his elbow. Ouroboros grunts in pain and tries to throw a kick. But before he can do that, SRC-0 makes a small leap and kicks him I the knee.

“Yo!” Mors amazed to what he’s seeing. “That guy’s getting the Käsi kicked out of his Ter-ASS.”

“YEAH!” Shok exclaimed. “Wait. I don’t get what you just said.”

“I don’t know either, I just stole it from a guy next to me and it sounded funny.”

Every move Ouroboros tries against SRC-0 ends him getting getting hit by another jump kick. Not helped that each of those kicks are pretty hard hitting. In the blink of an eye, SRC-0 lays their hand flat and vertically and proceeds to quickly thrust it forward towards Ouroboros. He screams in terror unexpected of the attack, but when the thrust connects to his stomach. Ouroboros feels no pain. He’s confused, but then suddenly, SRC-0 turns adjusts his hand into fist, hitting Ouroboros with the one-inch-punch in the stomach. The giant holds in his stomach, deeply in pain and kneels to the ground.

“Question.” SRC-0 speaks to Ouroboros. “Is a form of masochistic pleasure?”

Ouroboros grins. He gets up and points at SRC-0 with his lower right arm. An electric bolt is fired out of the finger hitting SRC-0 in their right arm, disabling it, causing to go limp. He then quickly grabs the limp arm with both of his upper arms, lifts them up over his head and slams SRC-0 to the floor. As SRC-0 is getting up, Ouroboros zaps two more bolts to SRC-0’s legs, causing them to not get up. He grabs his legs and does another slam to the ground. He picks up SRC-0 again. He grabs his legs holds up and starts punching them repeatedly.

“WELL’P” Mors loses hope. “We’re screwed!”

Shok is concerned. “SRC, please...” He speaks under his breath. “Use the force...”

Ouroboros lets go of SRC-0 again. He then lifts them up by just holding their right arm. SRC-0 punches Ouroboros arm with his left arm. But they realize they’re just punching metal. Ouroboros laughs as he points at SRC-0 again. SRC-0 looks at the audience, seeing Shok’s disappointment. They’re starting to feel like they’re failing Shok and the droids. Though, despite this, SRC-0 looks back to Ouroboros and punches even harder. Just hoping that they at least damage the arms. A bolt of electricity comes out of Ouroboro’s finger, zapping SRC-0’s left arm. It doesn’t go limp.

“Huh!?” Ouroboros is confused that nothing happened.

SRC-0’s legs stand firm on the ground and their arm becomes firm. They can movie their limbs again.

* * *

As Rey meditates abvoe the ocean again, just right when SRC-0 can move their limbs. Rey’s eyes are wide opened. She jolts up.

“I found you!”

* * *

SRC-0 stops punching Ouroboro’s arm and instead holds on to his index finger, then proceeding to rip his entire arm off. While no blood comes out of Ouroboros, he does yell in extreme pain.

“HA HAA!” Shok celebrates shaking C-3PO’s shoulders. “I told you ya shouldn’t doubt!”

C-3PO is baffled by Shok. “But I never doubted! Not once!”

SRC-0 takes a few steps back. Then they rush toward Ouroboros leaping up, pushing their leg up, slicing across his chest with their foot. Ouroboros falls to the ground, with a surprising low amount of cyan-colored blood than one expects from a blow like that. Though, from the looks of things, it’s halted by the cybernetic internals preventing any extreme blood lost.

Yuzzum is distraught at the sight, but the crowd goes completely wild. Seeing someone take down the 500 year undefeated champ in their lifetime.

Mors walks up to the Yuzzum with a smug grin. “Alright! Time to cough up the five-grand!”

The Yuzzum growls. “ **NO! I CALL FOUL!** ”

“What do you mean _foul_? Quit being a salty bitch and pay up!”

“ **I BELIEVE THAT MAN IS A JEDI! NO CYBORG CAN RECOVER THEIR LIMBS THAT QUICKLY! I WANT A MIDI-CHLORIAN COUNT! POLICE!!!!!** ”

Mors and C-3PO are worried. C-3PO figures that SRC-0 is force sensitive and Mors knows full well, that even if Jedi aren’t banned. They can be pretty much prohibited from whatever the owner, provider or organizer states and can get a cop to essentially take them to jail. Even if the Yuzzum didn’t state that Jedi aren’t allowed, he can still get the police on them.

A cop arrives at the area. “What seems to be the problem?”

“ **THIS MAN!** ” The Yuzzum points to SRC-0 “ **I THINK HE HAS THE FORCE! HE CHEATED IN MY COMPETITION!”**

The cop gets on stage and approaches SRC-0. “Alright, sir.” He brings out his midi-chlorian scanner from his pocket. “Stand still.” He scans through SRC-0’s body. The scanner beeps and the cops looks into the counter.

“ **WELL!?!?!?!?!”**

 **“** He’s as clean as they can get.” He shows the Yuzzum scanner, stating that SRC-0 has zero midi-chlorians in their body.

Mors and Shok are relieved and C-3PO realizes something. “Oh that’s right… SRC-0 doesn’t have blood...” C-3PO speaks in a low volume.

"Come on! He’s not force sensitive. You are obligated to pay up!” The cop orders.

The Yuzzum growls. Then he mysteriously has a grin. He brings out the briefcase from under the stage. He opens it showing that there’s 5000 credits, then closing it, handing the case over to SRC-0.

“ **MY APOLOGIES. CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR VICTORY!** ”

SRC-0 gets off of the stage, with Shok and Mors getting ecstatic.

“NOW!” Mors proclaims. “Let’s get our parts and get the hell out of here!”

* * *

Rey is in the hologram room of the temple contacting Poe Dameron.

“It’s good to see you recovered quickly, Poe.” Rey relieved to see Poe in good health.

“I appreciate your concern,” Poe genuine in his appreciation, “but I’d worry more about Chewie at the moment.”

“I have heard. I was speaking to Ben Solo recently. He’s aware too. He wants to to let Chewbacca know he is truly sorry for his past actions. He does truly see him as a member of his family.”

“Oh! Chewie has already forgiven him. But I guess even when you’re dead, I guess you still feel a little guilt. But, I’ll be sure to let Chewie know. Anyway, how’s your search?”

“I found the entity.”

“Really!? Uh. What did you find out.”

“This entity is a droid that can use the force.”

“Wait. WHAT!? Like you’re sure this isn’t a cyborg or anything?”

“Nope, it’s a full on droid.”

“And you’re sure it’s using the force?”

“I’m one-hundred percent certain.”

“Man. This is crazy...” Poe paces a bit, taking in the idea of a Jedi Droid. He turns back to Rey. “Did you find anything else about it?”

“I might of gotten the name. I believe it’s S-R-C and the number ‘zero,’. I know a little bit about programming and SRC is usually short for ‘source.’”

“Is it friendly? In fact, did you manage to see the other droids?”

“I only got a brief glimpse of C-3PO in a crowd within Soluun.”

“Well, if anyone can tolerate C-3PO that early, they can’t be that big of an ass… Though, no sign of BB-8?”

Rey shakes her head.

“Damn. I hope he’s okay.”

“I hope so too.”

“… Well. We're not going to give up. I’ll lend in the Falcon or Iolaire for you to pilot.”

“I won’t be going. The council voted for Temiri to go for his first mission for him being a Jedi Knight. Though, the Anti Republic has the final say. Is that okay with you?”

“Well, uh, yeah. I’m just surprised you’re not going. I hope those guys don't think you're too old! 30 is still quite young.”

“I wanted to go. But you know things work here. We do things based on a vote. Plus, don't worry, the New Jedi Order doesn't concern themselves with age.”

“Well, that’s fair. I just it funny, I decided I’m not gonna go either.”

“Really now? Poe Dameron? Taking a back seat?”

Poe chuckles. “Yeah, I know, right? But, yeah I decided to take things a little easy. I’ll still fight when I need to, I'm still the best pilot in the galaxy after all! But right now, it doesn’t seem necessary. I’ll be sending someone else to pick up Temiri. Probably Rose.”

“If you’re certain. I don’t think 45 is _that_ old. But if it’s worrying your comrades. I guess it’s appropriate. Well, I’ll be continuing to analyze, in case anything changes.”

“Alright. Thanks for your help Rey. I’ll start getting things set up. You take it easy now!”

“You too, Poe.”

* * *

**The Anti Republic Space Station**

Poe ends he call with Rey and takes an elevator to the war room. In the war room is a large monitor connected to the wall, as well as a long table, containing a monitor on top of it. Several Anti Republic Pilots and Troopers are there, as well as several higher ranked members, such as Rose Tico and Jannah. The Anti Republic Troopers have a helmet very similar to Zorii’s, but it’s black instead of gold. In fact most of their armor is black, with the structure similar to Mandalorian armor. The material is still typical plastoid and not the Mandorlian armor material, beskar. However, the cloth underneath the armor is a vibrant red.

Poe walks in the war room, standing in front of the wall monitor.

“I have some good news.” Poe announces “Rey found out what the mysterious entity is and where’s it at. Plus, we know C-3PO is still active. BB-8 remains a mystery. This going to be a lot to take in and I know for sure you’re going to have a lot of questions. But it would seem like the entity that I encountered in the freighter, is a force sensitive droid. We're certain it isn't sinister, but just something to be aware when trying to contact or when apprehending it. Finally, Rey will not be taking part in this mission. The newly knighted Temiri Blagg was selected for this mission.” He looks to Rose. “Rose. I understand due to complications out of your control, you couldn’t make it to his ceremony. Since you’re his legal guardian, do you want to take this mission?”

“I’d love to,” Rose appreciative of the offer. “But, you know, I don’t think he’s going to want me to bug him on his first mission as a Jedi Knight.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Poe turns to Jannah. “Jannah. Do you want to take this mission?”

“I do.” Jannah accepts.

“Alright. Are they any objections?” Nobody objects. “Alright good. Jannah. Take your pick of either the Iolaire or the Falcon and make your way to Ahch-To.”

* * *

Back within the electronics market, Mors pays for the hyperspace motivator. The merchant inspects the money.

“Uh, excuse me.” The merchants shows the credit to Mors. “You trying to con me? These are counterfeit!”

“WHAT!?” Mors grabs the credit. Upon closer inspection, they are counterfeited. “THAT WEASEL!”

“Isn’t he more of a Yuzzum?” Shok figures.

Mors slams his head on the counter, moaning.

C-3PO walks to the group. “Uh. Mors. You’re not going to like to hear this...”

Mors jolts up and grabs C-3PO shoulders and shakes him. “ **WHO’S MEDDLING WITH MY FRICKIN’ SHIP!?!** ”

* * *

BB-8 peaks out behind a rock. He sees Fox Amat talking with a New Republic trooper. They stand in front of a truck, that has the Slave Duo tied up in the back.

“I want this ship taken to the nearest military base.” Fox Amat instructs. “In addition, I want forensics involved as well.”

“What’s a fork-sick or what you call em’?” The New Republic trooper asks.

“Y- Wh- You don’t who forensics are?”

“I just shoot and drive a truck.”

“Okay, whatever, just get the police!”

“Oh. Well why didn’t you just say that instead of speaking yer fancy pants Coruscant words?”

“Because we need more than the cops to analyze the DNA left on the seat!”

“Now what’s a DNA? Does it taste good with mah sauce?”

Fox face palms hard. “JUST TAKE THE SHIP TO BASE!”

“Now you’re speaking mah language!”

The troopers gets in his truck and drives off and Fox gets in his X-wing and tekes off, taking a different route to Tatooine’s base.

* * *

Mors takes a few deep breathes. “Okay.” He gestures SRC-0 and Shok to huddle over. “I have plan.”

Mors and Shok run out of the store carrying their needed items, followed by SRC-0 carrying C-3PO over their shoulder. Angry employees start chasing them.

“I do not approve any of this!” C-3PO nags.

“I don’t give a damn about your approval!” Mors panics. He looks to Shok. “We gotta G.T.A man!”

“Good idea!” Shok agrees.

He takes off his hood and rushes into the middle of the street jumping up and down doing the iconic Tusken Raider roar. An elderly couple driving a speeder are not slowing down, in fact, the driver brings out a blaster pistol, pointing it at Shok.

“Move out of the way you filthy piece of-” The old man shouts.

SRC-0 gets in front of Shok and stomps on the on coming speeder, causing it to have a rough stop. SRC-0 brings out their lightsaber.

“Please leave.” SRC-0 tells the elderly couple, causing them to scream in horror, leaving their speeder.

SRC-0 puts C-3PO on the backseat, upside down with his legs pointing up. SRC-0 sits next to C-3PO, Shok takes shotgun and Mors gets in the driver seat and drives off. Mors drives the car through opposing traffic, causing a lot of angry drivers honking their horns. One speeder crashes into a pole, due to trying to dodge Mors. Eventually, the two police speeders starts starts chasing Mors with their sirens going off.

“How persistent are the cops around here?” Mors asks.

“Not very.” Shok answers.

“Cool.”

Mors takes a sharp turn, of which the police crash into an on coming truck. This also begins a series of other car crashes, causing a traffic jam. Regardless, Mors manages to get out of Soluun and drive back where he landed his ship.

Mors parks the speeder. “Alright! Get that stupid little droid and let’s try to see if can tell us where the ship is!” 

“Don’t be dissing lil BB-W.” Shok defends.

BB-8 gets out of hiding and angrily beeps at Shok.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” SRC-0 suspects.

“NO! I legit keep forgetting his name!”

“JUST BRING IT IN!” Mors furiously getting impatient.

SRC-0 picks up BB-8 and brings it in the speeder.

“Now, where did the ship go BB-8?” SRC-0 asks. BB-8 beeps. “That direction?" SRC-0 holds BB-8 to a random direction. "Or wait, no, you mean that way?" SRC-0 points to another direction. "No? Uh, you mean that? Uuh. You sure you know where it is.”

“Hold on.” Shok gets out of the speeder. I can help you guys find it. Shok touches the ground.

“Uh?” Mors doesn’t understand. “What are you doing?

“Shut up.” Shok takes a deep breathe. “I can sense the sand. I was taught to speak with it.”

“… I’m sorry, wha-”

“It went that way.” Shok points to the right direction.

“You better be right.”

Shok hops on to the speeder and Mors drives off again. He drives at full speed driving within the vast desert terrain, feeling like they’re in another planet compared to Soluun. While no one would be to tell, Shok closes his eyes, giving directions to Mors. It didn’t take long for them to see a truck in the distance. BB-8 uses his lens to zoom in on the truck. It beeps excitedly.

“That’s the truck!” SRC-0 interprets for BB-8.

“Okay, Shok.” Mors instructs. “I need you to drive the truck. You’re gonna kick out of the driver and drive. Just put your foot on the pedal and dodge any oncoming terrain, don’t think about anything else. Got it?”

“Got it!” Shok understoods.

The speeder starts speeding up to the truck. The trooper driving it doesn’t notice them, driving and occupied with watching a video from the holonet on his smart-datapad. The speeder gets right next to the door. Shok stands up. The trooper looks to his right and sees Shok standing up on a speeder. He pulls down the window and points his blaster at Shok. Upon doing that, Shok leaps forward grabbing hold onto the blaster.

“HEY! LET GO OF MAH GUN!” Shouted the trooper.

The truck swerves erratically, Shok puts one hand on the door and pulls the trooper out of the truck. Shok quickly gets inside and drives the truck. As the trooper falls out of his truck, Mors quickly brings out his blaster pistol, shooting the trooper. BB-8 didn’t like Mors doing that. SRC-0 seems to agree with BB-8.

“Hey, Mors. Was that necessary?” SRC-0 asks.

“Yes.” Mors answers. “Albeit, not the morally right thing to do. If I let him live, he would of gotten back up. Anyway. Get those useless droids on first, then you hop on and grab me.”

SRC-0 nods and tosses C-3PO on the back of the truck. SRC-0 then holds BB-8 and leaps off the speeder, getting on the back of the truck. Mors, a bit nervous, gets the speeder real close to the truck, stands up and jumps. SRC-0 grabs Mors, and gets him on the truck.

Mors walks up to his Slave Duo and opens the trunk and starts working on repairs. SRC-0 sits and stares at the afternoon suns, the sky becoming a dimmer blue. This changing of the day always intrigues SRC-0, always makes them become a bit introspective. They get up and get to the very back of the truck, seeing the dead trooper in the far distance, barely making out its figure as they farther way from it. SRC-0 walks up to Mors.

“Are you a now a murderer?” SRC-0 asks.

He doesn’t answer.

Despite Shok’s fear on driving the truck. He doesn’t feel right about what Mors did either. But he desperately wants to get out of Tatooine in any way he can. Perhaps he is the demon from his tribe’s legend. He might feel that is the truth. He wants to hate his tribe. He wants to hate his family. But why does he feel still pain for being exiled? Why does it still hurt?

The truck goes through an area that has tall walls of sand and rock. On top of the walls comes out five bandits on speeder bikes, look to be part of the same gang that abused Shok. They cackle as they chase the truck.

Mors looks up. “Oh great. Neo Imperials!”

“I think I dealt with those guys yesterday.” SRC-0 remembers.

“I take it they were attacking Shok?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah. Well. These guys are the worst of the worst. You shouldn’t feel any remorse for slaughtering those racists pricks, right?”

SRC-0 doesn’t answer. They bring out their lightsaber. The Neo Imperials fires their blaster rifles at the truck. SRC-0 protects Mors, deflecting the blaster bolts with their lightsaber at a rapid succession. However, SRC-0 didn’t hit a single Neo Imperial. One of the single Neo Imperials leaps off their bike, jumping ot to the driver side of the truck’s door. They bring out a small knife laughing.

“Uh, SRC!” Shok panics. “HELP!!!”

SRC-0 hear's Shok's call and steals Mors’s blaster pistol. “HEY!” Mors shouts.

They fire at the Neo Imperial trying to kill Shok.

“Are you now a murderer?” Mors asks. SRC-0 throws the blaster pistol at the back of the Mors’s head. “Ow! That doesn't disprove anything you know.”

The Neo Imperials continue firing their blaster-rifles. Mors ducks while he tries to make repairs and SRC-0 does the best they can deflecting the blaster bolts, though still didn’t hit anyone through a deflection.

Suddenly one of the Neo Imperialists gets blown away. From a large blaster bolt from the sky. SRC-0 and Mors are alarmed by this. They look up and it’s from a New Republic X-wing. Two of them are chasing them in fact.

“OH you got to be kidding me!” Mors shouts.

Shok looks at the rear view. “Uh. Guys. I think I might have an idea.”

“Oh, impress me!”

“What if we lose these jerks, by spinning? That’s a good trick right?”

“Spinning **IS THE WORST POSSIBLE THING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW!!!** ”

Two X-wing pilots communicate each other. “Okay, do not fire at the tow.” One of the pilots instruct. “We’ll fire at the driver when we're in a safe area to do so."

One of the X-wings tries to fire at another Neo Imperialist, but they swiftly dodge the blast.

Shok turns to the group. “Uh. Guys. You’re gonna want to hold on to something”

Shok is abot to drive off what looks to be a cliff. Mors holds on to this ship. SRC-0 picks up BB-8 and sees C-3PO laying down at the end the of the front of the tow.

“I hate every aspect of this!” C-3PO whines.

SRC-0 picks him up. “Same.”

Shok drives off a cliff, roughly 50 feet or 15 meters tall. Shok and C-3PO scream falling, one of the Neo Imperialists crashes into a giant boulder, causing their speeder bike to explode. The truck safely lands, though the X-Wings and the single Neo Imperialists are still chasing them. Not helped they’re the middle of a Podrace.

“Oh no...” Shok realizes. “We’re in a podrace… That means we’re not far from-”

The truck passes by the Tusken Raider snipers. The snipers noticed Shok is driving the truck.

“HEY!” The Tusken Raider notices. “That’s Shok! He shouldn't be here! **GET HIM!!!** ”

As the podracers are already trying to dodge the truck and not dying, they’re not getting bombarded by a bunch of Tusken Raiders landing on them.

“Your tribe doesn’t look happy Shok.” SRC-0 notices.

“ _NAAAAAH,_ YOU DON’T SAY!” Shok shouts.

Only few Tusken Raiders manage to get hold of the podracers vehicles and try to invade the truck. Any Tusken Raider trying to get on the final Neo Imperialist’s Speeder Bike are met with a shot of his blaster rifle. A Tusken Raider gets on top of the trunk of the truck. Two others get on the back. They both try to rush over Mors. SRC-0 rushes towards them, they kick off one them off the truck and vertically slices the other. The one on top of the trunk tries breaking the windshield with his staff. Shok tries swerving to get him off. This causes trouble for Mors making repairs.

“You mind calming it there, Shok!” Mors complains.

“Kinda hard when your own uncle is trying to murder you!” Shok yells back.

The Tusken Raider breaks the windshield. He attempts to stab Shok, but Shok moves his head out of the way. SRC-0 jumps on top of the truck and is above the Tusken Raider. They stab them in the back, and pushes them off the truck. SRC-0 heads back to the back of the truck, making sure Mors is alright. The Neo Imperialists tries to shoot the Mors, but instead shoots a part of the engine.

“Anything serious break?” SRC-0 asks.

“Uh. Kinda.” Mors answers. “Stabilizers are busted. Ride’s going to be bumpy even when everything’s smooth… Also, CAN YOU JUST KILL THE GUY ALREADY!?”

Shok gets the truck out of the podracing track, by getting to the far wider area where there aren’t any walls. However the X-wing pilots now find an opportunity to shoot the truck. They commence fire. Shok narrowly dodging the shots. SRC-0 starts to worry. They try to halt the X-wings by using the force, but nothing happens. The Neo Imperialists fires again, hitting another part of the Slave Duo.

“WELL. Now the emergency energy back up is busted!” Mors notes.

The X-Wings continue to fire, each shot getting closer to Shok. SRC-0 is getting frustrated with the X-wings and the Neo Imperialist. The X-wing’s shot grazes the trunk’s door, causing it fall out. The Neo Imperialist laughs manically. SRC-0 can’t bare to fail this time, they’re so close. They just want to do good, but already killed several people during this endeavor. They can’t bare the thought on failing BB-8, C-3PO and Shok. None of this helps with their mediocre skills with a lightsaber, Mors’s berating, the taunts from the Neo Imperialists and the harassing X-wings. When the Neo Imperialist fires his blaster again, SRC-0 bats it causing the blaster bolt to hit through the windshield on one of the X-wings, killing one of the pilots, which the X-wing itself tilts it to the other, hitting it hard enough so that the other X-wing falls on the Neo Imperialist, causing an explosion. This is followed by another by the other the crash from the other X-wing.

Within a few minutes, Mors closes the trunk. “Alright, finally done.”

“That’s good!” Shok states. “Cause we’re about to run out of gas!”

The truck slows down, coming to a complete stop and landing on the ground. SRC-0 uses their lightsaber to have the Slave Duo free from the straps. Shok gets out of the truck and hops on the back. As mors opens the cockpit, three more New Republic tie fighters land near them. The three pilots get out with blaster rifles, one of those pilots being Fox Amat. The three put their hands up.

“Alright!” Fox Amat real peeved at the three. “Don’t move! You three caused quite a stir and it ends right here!”

Shok notices the sand is moving a little bit.

“Now. If you want to live! You come with me.”

“UH.” Shok speaks. “I’m sorry did you say stir or spur?”

Fox raises his brow. “Uh, I said stir!”

“So, spur?”

“NO! I said stir!”

“Ah! Spur, right.”

“STIR! I SAID STIR!” The sand starts to move even faster. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?! STIR!”

“Right! Spur, spur! I gotchoo!”

“NO! I SAID **STIRRRRRRR!!!!!!!** ”

Suddenly a giant Sarlacc comes out of the ground, causing the X-wings to sink. Two of the other pilots fall into the Sarlacc pit. SRC-0 puts C-3PO on shotgun of Mors’s ship and picks up BB-8 taking a backseat. Shok also takes a backseat and Mors gets on the pilot’s seat, closes the cockpit. Mors rotates the cockpit upward and the Slave Duo flies off in vertical position. Fox Amat throws 5 five grenades in the Sarlaac’s mouth. Nothing happens right away, but in a minute it explodes, with its white blood all over Fox Amat’s body.

“AH HA HAAA!” Shok laughs of great joy. “WE DID IT! We’re… We’re finally getting out of here!”

“Yeah, good riddance!” Mors is relieved.

“Will you really be taking us to Ahch-To, Mister Fal?” C-3PO asks.

“That was the promise wasn’t it? SRC-0 defeated Don Ouroboros. I can’t go back on that now, despite being screwed over.”

Nearby, the Outsider Iolaire is flying across Tatooine, piloted by both Jannah and Temiri. They’re not far from the Slave Duo, and the two notice it.

“That looks like the Slave I.” Jannah commented.

“I think it is…” Temiri remarks. “Wait… I think… The source of the entity’s force… Is coming from that ship! Can we make contact?”

“We can try.” Jannah presses a button trying to communicate with the Slave Duo. “Hello, this is Jannah, Co-Pilot of the Outsider Iolaire. We do not want to attack. We just want to talk.”

The Slave Duo’s radio signal is terrible, it sounded like they wanted to attack them.

“GREAT! We can’t catch a break!” Mors aggravated at the assumed conflict.

“Wait, I recognize that voice.” C-3PO notes.

Temiri tries communicating. “We are a part of the New Jedi Order. We promise, we will not hurt you.”

Again the Slave Duo comes across as otherwise.

“OH, so now it's a promise, they’re gonna hurt us!?” Mors assumes. "Get ready for a fight guys!" Mors turns the slave duo around, preparing to fire.

“WAIT! NO! That’s Master Jannah and Master Temiri! They’re friends! Stop the ship!”

Both ships land to the ground, with everyone exiting their respective ships.

C-3PO walks up to Jannah and Temiri “OH! It’s so good to see you two again!”

Jannah smirks. “It’s good to see you too, 3PO.” BB-8 rolls up to them. “Especially you BB. Poe’s been worried sick about you.”

Temiri walks up to SRC-0. “Hey. I believe you’re a force sensitive droid?”

“Yes.” SRC-0 confirms. "How did you know?"

“I’m Temiri Blagg, a Jedi Knight for The New Jedi Order. We’ve been sensing your presence. I see you took great care of 3PO and BB.”

“I try my best. They were a great help, as well my friend Shok and..." SRC-0 reluctant to call Mors a friend. "Our colleague, Mors.”

Mors walks up to the group. “So, I take it you take the two droids and we follow you guys to Ahch-To?”

“That’s the plan.” Temiri confirms. “We will pay you a hefty amount of credits as a reward.

“Cool, look, I don’t want to cut the conversation short, but we gotta get out of here quick. We caused a bit of a mess and honestly I can’t stand to bare Tatooine any longer!”

“Same.” Shok agrees.

Shok and SRC-0 get in the Slave Duo, and C-3PO and BB-8 get in the Outsider Iolaire. Both ships fly off, with the Slave Duo following the Iolaire.


	6. Chapter 6

The Galactic Senate building in Coruscant still stands strong even after a hundred years of war. While it was useless during the era of the Galactic Civil War, and not a main office for the New Republic; even prior to the conflict with The First Order, it’s still has its use. For the most part, it’s used almost as a museum, giving tours to people who want to learn about the building’s history, Though it’s still the building where political debate takes place, such as this night’s Galactic Unity Party primary debate between Senator Finn and Senator Aszaxy the Hutt.

Inside the building, the large room with the floating pods still has mostly the same infrastructure. However the lighting is far brighter in the center and the pods themselves received an upgrade. They now have a dimly lit glow and change colors. This is to further give more of a nice presentation to the area, especially since it’s being broadcast across the galaxy and mostly to give the area a nicer impression as this is the very building where the Galactic Empire was born.

A single human woman is the moderator of the debate and currently the only one that’s in the center of the room. She makes her introduction and announces Aszaxy the Hut. His pod enters in the center as waves to the applauding audience. He is a pale green hutt who’s almost completely nude other than his large blue sash.

Shortly after Finn gets announced. Finn is naturally nervous, but part of that nervousness is the fact he has always heard about this building. The First Order Stormroopers were educated in history, albeit with heavy revisions, showcasing Palpatine’s rise to power as a positive rather than a negative. But now knowing full well that Sidious and The Galactic Empire are truly sinister, this gives Finn a sense of an ominous aura around this place. As his pod floats towards the center, he’s given a much louder applause than what Aszaxy received. Finn and Aszaxy shook hands and await their questions from the press.

Any journalist has their pods move a bit forward from the crowd. “I understand both of you have fairly strong stances on certain economic issues.” One of Journalists preparing their questions. “Such as, both of you wanting medical care to be a right.” Finn and Aszaxy nod. “What are the differences between your stances?”

“Well,” Aszaxy begins to explain “There’s very little I want in the way to change our economy. I think medical care should be a right and I also agree that we crackdown on racism within businesses. However, I only agree with Social Unitarianism to a point! We need some incentive for our people to work and not consume all our resources. Credits are the proven best way to do both those things. Just regulations are necessary and we must accommodate for our workers well being, if they have a broken arm and their job requires heavy lifting. They can’t work! No work means no money so it should be a right to get medical care.”

“Alright,” The moderator turns to Finn. “What is your response, Senator?”

Finn takes a deep breath. “I find it fascinating you have such a deep care for the workers and yet you think our current economic system should remain mostly the same with a few major changes. I agree that we should solve the racism that businesses clearly have. That’s the first step in minimizing homelessness, however, it’s not the only step. Autonomization is on the rise, droids are getting far more advanced and capable of performing most of the lower class and even middle class labor. Mitigating the problem of racism, while major, alone doesn’t mitigate the problem of classism.” 

The crowd claps. Aszaxy seems a bit worried, that even the press seems to side with Finn. Though he isn’t worried about himself, aside from Raw Pakehna, his views align pretty close to most Galactic Unionists.

As the applause died down, the moderator turns to Aszaxy. “Do you anything to respond to?”

“Uh,” Aszaxy thinks on it. “No. I’m ready for the next question.”

Another reporter’s pod moves forward. “Aszaxy, your policies are heavily inspired by Free Form Economics though your suggestions on restrictions seem to have some alignment with Social Unitarianism, yet you seem to oppose to dive deep into it. As you mentioned free housing and free sustenance, why not have regulations for those?

“Good question. I simply don’t think it’s necessary! My prepositions for our economy would make it so we give a fair and balance power to the business. We can use regulation to mitigate classism as we would do to prevent racial biases. Same goes with autonomization! Let’s not have the droids take all of the jobs. The more droids they have taking up occupations, the more the business owner should be owed to pay in taxes that will go into financial support of the lower class as well funding for homeless shelters! If you put your mind to it, a credit can solve just about anything!”

Finn is far more confident and engaged with the conversation. “At this point I don’t understand you Aszaxy. You want financial aid for the lower class and you want some pretty stringent regulations for business owners. Just, why are you so opposed to free housing, free food and water and holding a job to be a right? Surely you can agree with the latter, right?”

“Well, their skills may not be applicable for the specific job! That is why we have job interviews. We have that as a verification to see if they are truly applicable for the job! We don’t just make people doctors who don’t have the training!”

“Training should be the only prerequisite. I’m not saying we just hand any job to a school drop out. It’s like how children have the right to go to school for free. We can do that, just with jobs.”

“But that’s taking away far too much freedom to the business owners.”

“And taxing them for over autonomizing isn’t a radical regulation? Let’s say, making occupation as a right is too harsh of a restriction. How is offering free housing and free sustenance going to conflict with occupation? How does it conflict with your ideal economics? Giving people the right to bare minimum of their survival doesn’t match with the luxurious lifestyles of the upper class. There will still be an incentive to go out and work. Don’t even start with me that we don’t have enough houses to give everyone in the galaxy a home. Coruscant alone has enough empty houses that can store up to five times the galaxy’s known population.”

“But that doesn’t answer the sustenance issue.”

“That’s what the regulations are for. Tons of food are being wasted everyday already. Food that can be given to those that need it." 

Aszaxy doesn’t respond. He is stumped. He can around in circles all day with Finn, but that isn’t going to make his point any stronger.

The moderator looks to Aszaxy. “Do you have anything else to say to that, Senator Aszaxy?”

Aszaxy answers. “Y-yes. I stand by what I said, i-it’s just that I- uh. Made my point clear.”

The last journalist’s pod moves forward. “Finn. While don’t claim to be a Social Unitarian, it would seem that if you get into office as Chancellor, you would want to have a transitioning point to achieve a Social Unitarian utopia. If that is true, what purpose would people have in society anymore outside of droid repair? What would be the point in life?”

Finn responds. “One’s purpose in life is irrelevant to our current situation. I know full well that I’m not going to achieve a Social Unitarian society in office nor will I ever think I'll be able to see it in my lifetime. We don’t know what a Social Unitarian society would look like, especially that every time one is attempted it’s curbed by the Old Republic. Heck, the New Republic is at fault for starting the Trandosha Civil War. All the Swois Colony wants is to set up a Social Unitarian society, but the Trandosha government fears such a thing, as does the New Republic, hence why the New Republic sold the Trandosha government our weapons. Regardless on whether or not nobody has a true occupation under a Social Unitarianism is besides the point. Our current society needs Social Unitarian principles and policies. Free Form economics only benefits to those in power and or already has an excessive amount of wealth. Social Unitarianism benefits everyone. It doesn’t hurt the rich and it saves the poor. It is for the people and I consider all sapient life be it, humans, near-humans, aliens all as people. When I become Chancellor of the New Republic, in fact, no. I will  **be** the Chancellor, because I fought for all life in the war against the First Order and I will continue to that fight until I die. Hi Kayzer never fought for anyone other than himself. He made slavery illegal all we wants, which he only did so after me, Rose Tico, Poe Dameron and Rey Skywalker pushed him to pass the laws regarding it. He only made slavery illegal to benefit himself to gain positive public image. Which is ironic, because he never was properly voted into office, he was Chancellor Lanever Villecham's chosen Vice Chair. He knows the people never liked him, that's why he made the Planetary Vote Value system and executive order. Unlike him, I don't need to cheat to win. Every knows that when I become Chancellor, it's not because that **I** will be making the change, it's because  **we as a society will make the change!** ”

The uproarious applause doesn’t just echo within the Senate Building, it echoes across the galaxy that are watching the debate. The debate is over. The rest of the issues discussed, about Force Sensitivity rights and Planetary Voting Values, they both see eye to eye on. It’s clear, Finn is their Chancellor even before Finn becomes the primary Galactic Unity Party candidate.

* * *

**New Republic Space Station**

Hi Kazyer and Radoo Vlacrul among other Free Republican delegates are in a larger room than the Chancellor’s office that also houses a large screen showcasing the debate. Almost everyone in the room is a human. With the exception of Radoo, only five people in the room of fifty are near-human and only two are alien. Radoo checks statistics from his smart-datapad.

“Kayzer.” Radoo looks to Kayzer. “Finn’s approval ratings are astronomical.”

Kayze nods, mildly impressed with Finn. “I can’t say I’m too surprised. He’s the youngest man to run for chancellor, handsome human man, war hero. Talk pretty good. Of course he’s gonna impress a bunch of kiddies.”

A delegate interjects. “Yeah, but most of our military is going to vote for Finn.”

“Look,” Radoo tries to explain, “I get that Kyz underestimates you. But I wouldn’t underestimate Finn either.”

“Alright.” Kayzer stands up. “Look, I’ll admit he’s gonna be my toughest opponent yet. Alright? I’m not _that_ arrogant. But let’s not forget he was a part of the First Order. That’s the very that's always going to taint his legacy no matter how many heroics he accomplishes during his time in the war. We still have a plan to ruin those Anti Republic pricks and best of all… He never had a Midi-chlorian check.”

One of the delegates objects. “Relying on rumors that he’s force sensitive isn’t enough to justify forcing one on him.”

Another delegate agrees. “Especially if the tests come out that he isn’t force sensitive. It'll make us look paranoid!”

Radoo counter objects. “Actually, for once, our Chancellor has a good idea.”

“Echuta.” Kayzer insults Radoo.

“Lovely. But, every time a Midi-chlorian check happens in a planet, Finn convenient leaves. Plus his leadership skills during the Battle of Exogol are… Too good… There is a justification to push one on him, just right now it’s a terrible time to do so.”

“So look. Finn has his victory today. But believe me, I will always be king. The Galactic Unionists are not going to win this war, we will control everything. I will dispose of all our oppositions and no one will be able to stop us. Not the G.U.P, not the Anti Republic and certainly not the Jedi and I will make sure history celebrates the fact that I was the one to put them in their deathbeds.”

* * *

The Slave Duo and the Outsider Iolaire are approximately 159 miles or 255 kilometers to Ahch-To. Mors Fal was listening to debate on his radio, as Jannah and Temiri were doing the same. Mors turns his head to to SRC-0 and Shok.

“Any thoughts on that?” Mors asks.

Shok has his face planted to the window. “Space, space, space, space…” Shok in constant amazement.

“Bro, it’s been five hours!”

“Aye! I was stuck on Tatooine for fourteen years! I only seen all of this in the movies! It’s so beautiful!”

“Figures you would be easily amused-, wait you’re fourteen!?”

“Yeah. I’ll turn fifteen next month and become an adult.”

“Ah.” Mors figures he’s closer to an adult. He turns to SRC-0. “You have any thoughts on the debate?”

SRC-0 was fixated looking to their side while avoiding looking at space. They turn to Mors. “Uh, I barely understood what they’re talking about. If what Senator Finn saying is true, why don’t they just, you know, do it?”

“Do, it?”

“Yeah, let everyone have free sustenance, housing and a right to work.”

Mors sighs. “It plants the seeds for Social Unitarianism to take over. If it does, it takes away power from politicians and the billionaire elite. People are power hungry and will do anything to hold on to it as long as they can. We had the power to make that change for thousands upon thousands of years now since the formation of the Old Republic. But nothing’s been done and as Finn said, every time we do something about it, it’s halted immediately.”

“Oh…” SRC-0 doesn’t have much more to comment.

Shok looks at SRC-0 looking down. “Well! You’re probably also excited to be in outer space… Again.”

“Not really. It kind of makes me uncomfortable.”

“Oh. Right… Well, perhaps you’re excited being an honorary Jedi!”

“Maybe.”

Mors scoffs. “It’s useful being a Jedi, but you gotta sacrifice a lot to be one.”

“Like what?” SRC-0 wonders.

“Well, uh. I know you can’t fall in love.”

“Huh? Why?”

“I dunno. Let’s ask our enlightened Jedi Knight.” Mors pushes a button on his dashboard communicating to the Outsider Iolaire. “Aye. Jedi Knight, uh, Tiddy Barf or whatever your dumb name is, we have a few questions about Jedi.”

Temiri raises his brow, he responds. “It’s Temiri… Blagg. Uh, yeah. What is it you want to know about?”

“Why can’t you weirdos fall in love?”

Temiri sighs, already expecting the usual questions. “You’re thinking of the Jedi Order of old. We’re now allowed to fall in love.”

“Ooh? So things changed over there eh?”

“A lot has changed.”

Mors mischievously grins. “So, uh, are you guys still celibate?”

Jannah snickers. Temiri never likes answering these types of questions. “No.”

“OH. Well, well, sir Temiri, are you a virgin?”

“Man, that’s none of your business!”

“YOOOOO! Jedi Knight got laaaaid!”

Jannah bursts out laughing. Temiri blushes.

Mors turns back to SRC-0. “Okay maybe it won’t be as sterile as it was before.”

Shok puts his hand on SRC-0’s shoulder, noticing they’re still not feeling well. “What’s wrong SRC? You’ve been mostly silent through out the trip.”

“I just don’t know. Will we actually manage to be Jedi? If C-3PO’s stories of Anakin are true. Can we fall into the same fate and become Dark Jedi ourselves? And… I just don’t feel good after killing those people back on Tatooine.”

Shok nods, understanding how SRC-0 feels. “You know, I think the same thing. But, as that Temiri guy said. Things changed over there. They’re bound to improve how things are done. I’m certain they’ll help us overcome our vices.”

SRC-0 tilts their head up staring at Shok, and while they can’t physically show it, they smile. “Right. I guess I should stop worrying.”

“Yeah! Sometimes you gotta look at the bright side of things! Otherwise, everything sucks!”

SRC-0 chuckles, gaining a more optimistic outlook toward Ahch-To.

Mors raises a brow. “Did you just laugh?”

The two ships enter into Ahch-To heading toward the New Jedi Temple. As they land on the bay that’s in front of the entrance, Temiri noticed the Millennium Falcon is already there. They land the ships and everyone gets out of them. As Temiri gets out, Rose is nearby the entrance waiting, notices Temiri and rushes up and hugs him.

“Temiri!” Rose frantically apologizes. “I’m sorry for missing your knighting ceremony! My ship was stuck on Zakuul and I had to get repairs and-”

“It’s okay! It’s okay!” Temiri, while appreciative, is embarrassed. “I get it! I’m still kinda busy with my mission! It’s good to see you thoough.”

Rose immediately let’s go. “Oh, uh, sorry. Y’know, it’s been a while since I see my little boy, I mean, you’re a big man now.”

Jannah snickers. Temiri calms Rose down, reassuring that everything is fine. Mors is a bit impressed about the surroundings, thinking the temple looks cool. Though, SRC-0 and Shok are far more impressed. Marveling at the oceans nearby, the vegetation, and the temple building itself.

Mors walks up Temiri. “So, uh. Is like, Rey actually here?”

“Yeah.” Temiri answers. “The one and only.”

“Wow, uh. Damn.” Mors is a bit nervous.

SRC-0 overhears their conversation. “Who’s Rey?”

Shok half pays attention, still marveling his surroundings. “The name sounds familiar.”

“Rey is one of the greatest heroes of our modern time.” Mors informs Shok. “She’s the one who put an end to Darth Sidious’s reign once and for all.”

“Wait.” Shok is confused. “I thought that was Anakin.”

C-3PO walks up to them. “I was going to tell you about that story before we entered in Soluun.”

“Oh.”

R2-D2 latches on to C-3PO, nudging his head on C-3PO’s leg. “You’ve been awfully clinging since I returned! I’m glad to see you too and all… Actually, I don’t mind this.”

“Well,” Temiri speaks up, “we should get going into the temple. The Jedi Mentors are expecting us.”

SRC-0, BB-8, C-3PO and R2-D2 follow Temiri. SRC-0 stops and turns to the others. “Are you guys coming?”

“Am I even allowed to come?” Shok asks.

“I’m not going in unless they let you in.”

Temiri turns around. “Don’t worry, everyone’s allowed in if you want to visit the mentors.” He looks to Mors. “You seem like you have respect for Rey.”

“Eh,” Mors is skeptical, “It’d be an honor, but I don’t think it’s necessary.”

“You did help us out, I’m sure she’ll be thankful.”

Mors scratches the back of his head. “Alright… Probably my only chance to meet her.”

The group enters in the temple, a large dome of a room. Many Padawan and Knight walk across to different rooms that surround the circular room. Noises of lightsabers and lectures can be faintly heard within those rooms. However, the most noticeable thing is within the center. It’s a small, soundproof room made of glass, where six of the Jedi Mentors are talking. While it’s soundproof, they deliberately make their conversations public as they can be heard through a speaker and they have computers set up near the room that archives their conversations. Near the door of the glass room, is a red. Temiri presses it which generates a buzzing sound within the room.

“You may come in.” Rey allows.

C-3PO is trying to pushing away R2-D2. “R2! I appreciate your affections, but I’m just going to be in the clearly visible room where you’ll hear our conversations.”

R2-D2 stops nudging on C-3PO. He doesn’t move for a few seconds and then rolls back, standing aside of the entrance.

The group walks in the dome. The six Jedi Mentors, of which includes Rey, the elderly man, also include an Ewok man, a Selkath woman, a Sluissi woman and a Gamorrean man. Half of the mentors are younger than Rey, with the oldest one being the Gamorrean. None of the mentors are sitting in the center.

Mors nervously shakes as he bows. “Uh. H-hi. I-I-I-I am. Uh, my name is. M-Mors Fal. I. Uh. It’s an honor to be in your pr-pr…” Mors takes a deep breath. “Presence. I uh. I uh.” Mors turns to SRC-0 and Shok. He grits his teeth. “WILLYOUBOWYOURUDEPIGS” he then realizes one of the mentors is a Gamorrean. “Did I say pig? I meant. Uh. Um. Y’know uh. Nerf?”

All of the mentors laugh, including Gamorrean who isn’t offended in the slightest. Rey gestures Mors to get up. “You don’t need to be so formal, Mors.”

Mors quickly gets up. “Right. Master Rey. Honor to meet you; of course, I’m pretty sure you want to know about, y’know, SRC-0.”

Shok chuckles. “This is the first time I see you be a gentleman.”

“Man, don’t call me out like that in front of Rey.”

Shok turns to Rey. “Yeah, me and this asshole helped each other out when we were on Tatooine. I’m Shok Cro’Rr. This friend,” pats SRC-0 on the back “saved our lives on more than one occasion.”

SRC-0 steps forward. “Well, we all saved each other, really. My name is SRC-0. I’m a droid. Sir Temiri managed to know me a bit. Knowing I’m a droid, that I can utilize the force and was on Tatooine. C-3PO filled us in a lot. He told us most about the wars that happened. If I were to be believed you’re this era’s current hero. I was told of you a little bit from C-3PO as well mentioning this planet. He was going to tell us more about your adventures, but we didn’t have time.”

“It’s honor to meet you SRC-0.” Rey politely greets. “As Mors already acknowledges, I am indeed Rey Skywalker.”

“WAIT!?” Shok is surprised to hear. “Y-You’re Luke’s daughter?”

Rey chuckles. “No. I just hold his surname. Luke was a good friend and his sister Leia is the closest to who I can call a mother. Even if I only knew her for a year, she has taught me so much.” She turns her head to C-3PO. “Thank you for assisting SRC-0 and his friends.”

“Um,” SRC-0 is not comfortable being called  _ he _ , “I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t like being called he or she. I would like it if you refer to me as _they_ please?”

“Oh, my deepest apologies SRC-0. Actually, this is relevant to how I found you. Have you noticed how we don’t call ourselves Jedi Masters?”

“Yeah actually.”

“Don’t they mean the same thing?” Mors asks.

“They do.” The Ewok answers in the common language. “We just want to emphasize that we’re teachers not their masters in the sense that there’s a true hierarchy.”

“Exactly.” Rey agrees. “In addition, we’re always still learning. Don’t take this as an insult SRC. But I struggle to find you because I couldn’t comprehend a droid being truly alive, at least not in the same way as a person. I had to be open minded on what I must see as alive or sapient. Once I have done that, I was able to spot you. I didn’t see much, so I wasn't necessarily stalking you or anything."

“I understand why you tried to find me.” SRC-0 sympathizes with Rey. “You’re friends with C-3PO and BB-8. Plus, I understand. I’m the only one of my kind as of yet. I also want to know my origins. Plus, if it’s not an issue, I would like to be a student. My force abilities, while they were strong during my awakening, I can’t replicate it. Plus I think I have might be connected to something sinister” SRC-0 takes out their lightsaber and turns it on. “C-3PO this is a weapon of a Dark Jedi. I know Dark Jedis can use blue lightsabers, but almost all of them use red.” They turn off their lightsaber and puts it back in their palm.

“It is true, while not mandatory, most Dark Jedi do use red lightsabers. However there’s nothing inherently sinister about a red lightsaber. Building a lightsaber requires a kyber crystal. The power and color of the crystal aligns with the force. They are very difficult to make. While it’s not impossible for a Dark Jedi to use a natural kyber crystal, it’s almost impossible for those who follow the Sith Doctrine. Hence why they use synthetic kyber crystals, they're just as effective as the organic crystals, but don't require as much work. We do allow red lightsabers to be used or built. Even the Jedi Order of old allowed them.”

“But most people don’t it see it that way, do they?”

“Unfortunately not. With our current segregation and controversial changes made to the Jedi Order, it’ll be hard to convince anyone that a red lightsaber isn’t inherently evil.” BB-8 rolls up to Rey, nervously bringing up that he can’t find Luke and Leia’s lightsabers while they were in Tatooine. “Oh, that’s not surprising, they’re buried deep. But, I can get them.” she holds out her two hands, both holding nothing, but in the blink of an eye both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers appear on her hand. Everyone is taken aback by her power. “SRC-0, you can keep your current lightsaber, but in the meantime before you build your own lightsaber.” She offers Luke’s lightsaber. “Have my old lightsaber. This was once used by Anakin and Luke Skywalker. It has a long legacy and it has served us well. You will have a rough path ahead of you and you’ll need everything you can get that will help you.”

SRC-0 doesn’t accept it. “I-I, I can’t take it. I’m not ready for it. I’m not worthy, you know?”

“Don’t worry about that. Most Jedi start with a pre-built lightsaber. Sure, it has a long history, but it’s still no different than any other lightsaber in function. If you accept the lightsaber, we will enroll you in the New Jedi Order.”

SRC-0 thinks on it. “Alright, on one condition. You must give refuge to my friend Shok. No matter what, if you exile him like his tribe did, I’m also exiled.”

“We’ll accept him as refuge. We always help those in need and we understand Tusken Raiders are a widely hated race of people across the galaxy. In addition he can take Jedi training if he so desires.” 

“Hold up.” Shok objects. “I am truly honored that you will accept me as refuge. I’ll do anything to support you guys and do any needed work around here. But I can’t be a Jedi! I bet you, I don’t have a lick of force sensitivity in me.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Rey explains. “Your Midi-chlorian count can be in the negative for all we care. Force sensitivity doesn’t matter in the long run. Think of a speeder that’s built with the best acceleration. It’s helpful and gives a great head start, but acceleration alone doesn’t win the race. I’m the only mentor with force sensitivity, and in fact, Temiri over here isn’t considered force sensitive either. A good portion of our students are force sensitive, but it’s not a requirement to be a Jedi.”

“Ah. I see.” Shok is fascinated. “I dunno, I guess I’ll think about it! But,” Shok shakes SRC-0’s shoulder. “Come on! Take the lightsaber! It’s her lightsaber and she wants you to have it! Never deny a gift! Unless it’s a bomb set to explode after you open it. BUT, that’s not a gift that’s a trap!”

The Jedi mentors laugh. SRC-0 chuckles and nods. “Alright, I accept.” SRC-0 takes the lightsaber and puts it in their palm. “Thank you, Rey Skywalker.”

Rey stands up. “Welcome to The New Jedi Order. You are now an official Padawan, SRC-0.”

Rey Skywalker and SRC-0 shake hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder on New Jedi Order apparel: Most Jedi wear form-fitting clothing similar to what Rey wore in Episode IX. The torso lacks sleeves, but they have the option to wear a long sleeve shirt under the torso. There's a color code to the apparel each representing their rank:
> 
> Padawan = White clothing  
> Knight = Black clothing  
> Mentor = Light Gray clothing with a Dark Gray robe. (If a mentor is in battle or any rigorous physical activity, they can take off the robe)


	7. Chapter 7

Finn is back at his hotel room getting ready to unwind after his stress-inducing debate. As he takes off his dress jacket and sash, placing them in the closet, he has the holographic tv on, showing the news.

An attractive red Twi'lek woman news anchor reports on several wanted criminals from different planets, including Tatoione. “Three young men committed a robbery at one of the markets in Soluun and were shortly after, chased by the police. While we don’t have footage of the chase, we do have a portion of the aftermath shortly after they escaped the city.” The news footage shows some of the wreckage within Soluun. “We got a better look at the three when they attempted to rob an unclassified starfighter from a Republic sanctioned tow truck.” They show footage of the incident when SRC-0, Mors Fal and Shok Cro’Rr were retrieving the Slave Duo. “These are from the cameras of the X-Wing.” the footage ends right after SRC-0 deflects a Neo Imperialist’s blaster bolt to one of the X-Wings. “If you look closely…” They rewind the footage right before SRC-0 deflects the bolt. They zoom in closer of SRC-0. “... One of the culprits wields a red lightsaber.” Finn wasn’t paying much attention to the report until he heard the red lightsaber, he rushes to the television, watching the report. “These three men are still unidentified, with the only clue coming from one of the New Republic pilots, Fox Amat.”

They cut an interview with Fox Amat on Tatooine, still covered in white blood. “We know for certain one of the pilots came from Coruscant,” Fox explains, “likely around the underworld portion of it. We’re about to close our investigation on Tatooine, it’s looking like they’re long gone and out of the planet. BUT! I will not give up! They killed four of our men! Four hard working men that won’t ever be coming home. Nothing in this galaxy will stop me from serving justice to them and their loved ones!”

The interviewer asks: “What about the potential culprits being a Sith Lord? Are you going to take any precautions dealing with that particular culprit?”

“I can be dealing with an exploding supernova! As long as I got a starfighter, I can take on the entire universe!” He looks away from the camera, holding back his tears. “I’m done answering questions, I have a job to do.” He walks away from the interviewer, walking to his X-Wing nearby. The camera zooms in on Fox Amat as he gets in his X-Wing, crying in the cockpit.

They cutback to the Twi'lek, with the camera zoomed in on her breasts. Finn rolls his eyes at that and when they quickly zoom out the Twi’lek anchor looks clearly annoyed. “... If you spot this ship.” The anchor continues reporting, with a blurry picture of the Slave Duo next to her. “Or any of these three men.” Three CGI mediocre depictions of SRC-0, Shok and Mors, appear next to the anchor. “Please contact your local officials immediately.”

Finn turns off the TV and proceeds to sit on his bed. He brings out his smart-datapad, contacting Poe Dameron. He doesn’t place the datapad on his ear, he holds it out, facing flat. A small, full colored, transparent hologram of Poe Dameron appears above the screen of Finn’s smart-datapad.

“Ayyye, Fin!” Poe is overjoyed to see his best friend. “Congrats on your debate man! You destroyed that jackass!”

“Hey, thanks man.” Finn grins. He’s always pleased to speak with Poe, “How’s everything going?”

“Insane right now. A lot’s been happening in our investigation. I’ll explain it to you. But, I know you ain’t here for small talk. What’s been going on man?” 

“Two strange things have popped up. I can’t confirm nor deny any anything, but I believe Phasma is still alive.”

“Wait, what? Well, considering Sidious survived an exploding Death Star, I suppose anything's possible at this point. But how do you figure she’s still alive?”

“She might be one of the colonels for the New Republic Army. I bumped into her in an elevator. Her voice and height are exactly how I remembered Phasma’s. She acted very strange around me and strangest of all, she wasn’t supposed to be at the hotel. One of the generals was there and yelled at her for violating orders.”

“Yeah, no doubt it’s her. I take it, she’s a cyborg.”

“Yup.”

“Did you get what alias she’s going by?”

“Uh, yeah. Colonel Hatal.”

“It must be Holowan Labs doing then. Only they can come up with such a stupid name, like General Grievous. What’s next!? Commander Nefarious? Captain Immabadguy? Admiral Bone-To-Pick?” 

“I’m pretty certain Holowan Labs doesn’t pick the names. But, yeah, they’ve been assisting the New Republic Military.”

“Well, it’s quite a coincidence that two of the dumbest names are associated with them. But, regardless, those bastards are getting more suspect all the damn time. In fact, during our investigations, we might of found a droid like no other. We’re expecting Holowan to have some tie with it. Rey’s bringing the droid over to our base to have Maz Kanata and Babu Frik analyze it.”

“Wait, Rey’s involved in the investigation?”

“Well, uh, kinda. The thing is and you’re not going to believe this… We found a droid that can use the force.”

“Wait, what? I’m sorry, did you actually say droid?”

“Yes. I said it’s a droid. No flesh, all tech.”

“I know technology has been improving at a rapid pace and all, but damn. Force using droids… You sure it wasn’t like, electromagnetics or something?”

“If Rey thinks it has the force, it has the force. We don’t know much about it. It’s a mystery to everyone, including the droid, SRC-0, who doesn’t have a master, nor do they know who created them.”

“Look man, this man probably makes perfect sense and all, but I’m too drained for this. I hope it’s not dangerous.”

“They’re chill. You don’t need to worry much about it, with Rey, everything is under control. Anyway, thanks for letting us know about Hatal.”

Finn yawns. “No problem-Actually, wait. I forgot to mention something important. Since Rey’s coming over, have you heard the news of a newly founded Dark Jedi?”

“Uh, no? What’s going on?”

“Okay, it’s from Coruscant News, so only take it with a grain of salt, but three criminals stole a ship from the New Republic Military on Tatooine. Footage shows a man in black armor and a horned helmet destroying one of the X-wings by deflecting a blaster bolt with his red lightsaber. They seem to have escaped the planet.”

Poe eyes opened wide hearing this. He was already informed by Rey that SRC-0 uses a red lightsaber. He’s already nervous about SRC-0 considering what happened at the freighter. 

“Poe?” Finn asks. “Are you okay man?”

“Uh, yeah, sorry. Was there any more info about the Dark Jedi?”

“Yeah, the Dark Jedi is with a Tusken Raider and a human man with black hair.”

There’s no two ways about it for Poe. The reports were referring to SRC-0. He's now a bit annoyed over the fact that there are wanted criminals entering his ship. 

“Alright,” Poe nods his head, “I’ll let Rey about this when she gets on. You have a good night's sleep. Again, congrats on your debate.”

“Thanks man, it’s nice talking to you.”

Finn hangs up the conversation and falls asleep

* * *

Back on Ahch-To, the group prepares leaves for the Anti Republic Space Station, with the exception of Temiri who’s staying. Many Jedi stare at the three ships parked near the temple. As Mors walks up to ship, he sees a bunch of Porgs standing on it with an eccentric young woman with a crown made of leaves.

“What the-!” Mors is both confused and peeved by the sight. “GET OFF OF MY SHIP!”

“This ship is now under the ownership of Porg Queen!” The eccentric young woman claims.

“What!? I built the damn thing and I need to get going! NOW OFF!”

“Never! The Porg Queen has made up her mind!”

As Rey is about to enter in the Outsider Iolaire, she notices the Porg Queen. “Jenny!” Rey calls out in an annoyed tone. “Get off of his ship.”

“Okay…” The Porg Queen complies leading the Porgs off the Slave Duo. “They love that jerk’s ship! They can tell it’s so fast and it’s so…. Bulbous!”

Mors speaks under his breath. “Your face is going to be fat and bulging if you touch it again.”

“What was that?”

“ **STEP ASIDE!** ”

The Jenny the Porg Queen steps and the Porgs step aside all pointing their tongues at Mors, spitting raspberries.

Shok walks up to Mors. “Why are you going with us again? I thought you didn’t want to join the Anti Republic?”

“I never said I was joining.” Mors answers. “I want to get my pay.”

“I thought the New Jedi Order already paid you?”

“I told them to hold it and they can pay me at the space station. I also have questions about this Anti Republic.”

“Mors… Just exactly what do you want to do?”

“Why do you care?”

“It’s been on all of our minds. Me and SRC got no where else to go so we’re trying to figure out what to do next! Do we become heroes like Luke and Rey, or do we just stand by the sidelines on Ahch-To? You’re not just going to leave and wander off across space aimlessly are ya?”

“I’m not gonna tell ya what I’m doing. Well, I’ll tell you give the general idea. After my time at the space station, I’m not going to be your friend! I’m going to be the greatest gangster in the galaxy! I’m going to make so much bank… I’m gonna… I’m prove a point to those who wronged me! That’s what I’m gonna do!”

Shok doesn’t answer right away. “You’re in pain Mors. Something tells me you don’t like being a criminal.”

“Don’t act like you know me.” Mors closes his cockpit.

Shok shakes his head. He turns around seeing SRC-0 walking to the Iolaire. He approaches them.

“You nervous about being analyzed?” Shok asks.

“Yeah.” SRC-0 answers. “But it’s for the best. You have any thoughts on the Anti Republic?”

“Not really. I barely know what a Republic even is. I just want to explore more of our galaxy, y’know? Also, I thank you for being loyal to me and all, but you didn’t have to suggest that if I’m kicked, you get kicked.”

“Why not? If they just kick you out indiscriminately, why should I stay here then?”

“Well, fair. It’s just. Look. As you saw on Tatooine, most of my kind aren’t nice. There’s a reason why we’re infamy.”

“We’ll change that perception one day.”

Shok sighs. “Listen, what I’m trying to say is. If I ever do anything out of line, I dunno, lose control of myself. Don’t feel bad about wanting to still stay.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re going to teach you to keep control.”

“Well, it’s not a Dark Jedi thing. It’s…”

“HEY!” C-3PO shouts, standing on the Iolaire’s ramp. “We’re ready to head out!”

Shok sighs. “It’s complicated.”

As the two enter the Iolaire, the ships fly off of Ahch-To.

* * *

At the Anti Republic Space Station’s landing bay, Poe stands there, waiting nervously for the ships. The bay itself is filled with mostly X-wings and other ships within a similar size. It’s relatively clean and high tech. The Anti Republic may be small compared to the New Republic, but if anything isn’t small about them: it’s their budget.

The Outsider Iolaire lands first, followed by the Slave Duo. Poe didn’t want to see the Slave Duo, but he figured it was going to come along anyway. Everyone gets out of the ships. Poe walks towards the group.

He turns to Jannah. “Excellent work Jannah.” He then turns to Rey. “So, how do you like the Outsider Iolaire? Lando’s great taunt to Han!”

Rey giggled at how the Iolaire is being referred. “I thought it was his tribute to Han?”

“It’s both.”

“I must say, Lando managed to develop a better ship than the Millennium Falcon, but I’ll always prefer that over the Iolaire.”

“Yeah, even Lando agrees. But you two are weird! Anyway, uh,” He sees SRC-0 behind Rey. “I say we should to get to business. Uh. SRC-0?”

“Poe?” SRC-0 responds.

Poe doesn’t know what to follow up, not wanting to be rude to SRC-0. “Welcome to the Anti Republic base!”

“Thank you. Poe. I’m sorry for nearly killing you.”

“I have a feeling you weren’t quite in full control. So, no hard feelings.” Poe looks at Shok.” And that’s your friend, Shok, right?”

Shok is distracted by the bay, the ships entering and leaving, the fact that outer space is behind him.

“Shok,” SRC-0 nudges Shok’s arm. “He’s talking to you.”

“OH HUH.” Shok is alerted. “My apologizes, uh, Maz is it?”

“Poe.”

“RIGHT. Poe! Uh. I’m Shok.”

Poe looks at Mors, who has his arms crossed and is looking away from the group. “You’re Mors?”

Mors turns to Poe. “Yeah.” He looks around the station, noticing the Anti Republic troopers. “Why does your troopers look more sinister than the stormtroopers?”

Poe shrugs. “Just the colors of our group. I didn’t pick them. Anyway! We shouldn’t waste time, Maz is eagerly waiting at her workshop.” He turns to Jia and Aze who are working on their X-Wings. “Jia, Aze!” They stop what they’re doing and look at Poe. “Can you lead our guests to Maz’s Workshop?”

“Sure.” Aze answers. Jia doesn’t object.

“Good! Me and Rey will catch up with you guys.” 

Rey raises a brow. Not certain why she can’t go with the group, but she trusts Poe has a good reason. Aze and Jia leads SRC-0, Shok and Mors the way. When they leave the bay. Poe turns to Rey.

“Rey, there’s something Important I have to tell you.” He gazes at the Slave Duo.

Jia and Aze takes the group through the next room over, which is the hub area. A large vibrant room where troopers, pilots, doctors, programmers alike rush getting to where they need to be. There are large monitors above the rushing workers, showing where the rooms are and what’s scheduled to be done. Though not everything is in a rush, there are seats and tables in the area, where some people sit and socialize. Everyone looks happy in that area, even in the stressful environment, the area emanates a more optimistic feeling. The two pilots get the group into one of the elevators. They’re slightly cramped, and they take the third highest floor available. The loud sounds of stepping and talking are gone, with awkward silence becoming king.

Jia speaks first. “So, are you the Jedi Droid?”

“Yes.” SRC-0 answers, they recognize her voice. “Are you Jia Guner?”

“Yeah. How did you know my last name?”

“C-3PO told me a little bit about you.”

“Oh! He did?”

“Yeah. Though, I wonder, are you a Jedi?”

“Um, no? What made you think that?”

“When I heard your voice in the freighter, I felt a sensation similar to the other Jedi.”

"Hm. Well, I don’t have a lick of Midi-chlorian in me. So perhaps you’re feeling something else?”

SRC-0 doesn’t answer. Shok stares at the back of Jia’s head.

“Can I touch your hair?” Shok asks.

Jia shrugs. “Sure.”

Shok puts one hand on Jia’s hair. “Wow, it’s softer than it looks!”

“Wait,” Aze notices, “how can you feel her hair if you’re wearing gloves?”

“All Tusken Raiders are taught to feel through their gloves!” Shok stops touching Jia’s hair and explains. “The greatest ally to a Tusken Raider is their senses! But we have to be fully clothed to protect our weak skin. So, we have to teach ourselves what’s safe and what’s dangerous.”

SRC-0 looks at their hands. “You think I can learn it too?”

“Uuh-”

“No.” Mors interrupts, answering SRC-0’s question.

The elevator door opens and they all get out of it. They’re in a small hallway that only contains three doors.

“The workshop is behind the center door.” Aze directs. 

The group enters in Maz’s workshop, a cramped, brown room that's filled with shelves holding electronics. Wires cover the shelves, while there’s only one light in the room, it’s extremely bright. Maz Kanata and Babu Frik are checking on several motherboards and computer monitors. Maz notices the group arrived and walks up to Mors. She gets a good look at him, observing him from head to toe.

“I see you’re the one that needs repairs.” Maz analyzes.

“Uh,” Mors is confused. “I’m not the droid ya senile ole’ coot!”

“I know. The droid doesn’t require a repair, _you_ require one.”

“I didn’t ask for any damn therapy!”

“I didn’t say that _I_ was going to repair you. I’m just saying you need a repair.”

“Okay, out of all the people I had to deal with on this entire endeavor, you’re the one I hate the most.”

“I like her a lot already.” Shok comments.

“Maz Kanata.” SRC-0 approaches Maz. “Rey told me you’re very knowledgeable of the force. She even states that you know more about it than her and the other Jedi Mentors. Yet, she mentioned that she doesn’t think you’ll be able to find anything relating to the force. Is that true?”

“Yes.” Maz confirms. “The force isn’t that something that can be coded. I already know how you have the force. What I’m looking for is what makes you, _you_.” 

“I don’t quite understand. There must be something added to me. I’m apparently force sensitive and yet I don’t have Midi-chlorians in me.”

“Midi-chlorians don’t truly measure force sensitivity.” Everyone is shocked to hear this, most of all to Mors. “They can be a helpful way to gauge an idea on _how_ force sensitive you likely are as Midi-chlorians are attracted to force sensitivity. But there quite a bit of cases where people have high Midi-chlorian counts that aren’t force sensitive at all.”

Mors is seething with rage hearing this. He can’t believe what he’s hearing, his sister was taken away solely on an imperfect test. He grips his fists tight.

Shok notices Mors’s rage. “Are you oka-”

“ **No.** ”

Maz pays attention to Mors’s pain. She stares up at SRC-0. “Shall we get started?”

SRC-0 nods and takes a seat by the table. They take off their horns and head plate. Maz and Babu start hooking up wires on SRC-0’s head and get to work. The internal coding of SRC-0 appears on the computer monitors. Maz takes notes of the code on another computer. Mors peers at monitor that’s showing the code.

“Maaan…” Mors is impressed at the coding. “It looks like whoever created SRC went down to the amoeba.”

“You’re a programmer?” Shok asks.

“I know a thing or two, mostly in slicing.”

“Uh, in common please?”

“I’m a computer hacker.”

“OH! You’re like that guy in the movie who uses a computer to control the school principal's toilet so he can obtain the family fortune and save the orphanage! He calls himself a computer hacker!”

“...What movies have you been watching?”

Within twenty minutes, Maz and Babu finish their analysis and unplug the wires. SRC-0 puts back on their face plate and horns.

“What did you find?” SRC-0 asks.

“What we found was mostly expected.” Maz answers. “Your internal coding is so complex, you currently have the most advanced Artificial Intelligence out there! There's even a deliberate function, where if SRC-0 ever were to die and rebuilt, they wouldn't regain any of their memories. If it weren’t for the additional RAM I ordered that Babu insisted I shouldn’t get.” Babu grunts. “We wouldn’t of been able to see the code.”

“So,” Shok tries to comprehend what's going on, “they’re so advance of a droid, they can use the force?”

“Well, C-3PO _could_ potentially use the force.” Maz corrects. “It’s just easier for SRC-0 to do so.”

“3PO has the potential to use the force? This force stuff is very confusing.”

“You find anything else?” Mors asks. “Any clue as to who created SRC-0?”

“Clearly reverse engineering was involved.” Maz explains. “To put it simply, the language of the code looks to be a translation of what’s mostly used in Calrissian software. However, think of the translation as more of an act of imitation.”

Mors understands. “Oh. Essentially a bootleg then?”

“... In common please?” Shok doesn’t understand.

“SRC-0 might be a duplicate of another droid. One created by Calrissian Enterprises.”

“Except,” Maz further explains. “Calrissian Enterprises never released such a droid. Lando Calrissian expressed interest in creating a pure sapient droid, but not much is known about it. Whoever created you, SRC-0, has some connection to Lando.”

“Lando Calrissian…” SRC-0 recalls the name from C-3PO. “Is he the same Lando that blew up the second Death Star?”

“The one and only.”

“Quite the connection you got there!” Shok is impressed.

Zorii Bliss enters in the workshop. “Find everything you need in the droid, Maz and Babu?’

“Just about.” Maz answers. Babu agrees.

“Good.” Zorii turns to the group. “You three come with me. We have something important to discuss.”

Zorii takes the group to the war room, of which Poe and Rey are also present. The three have a seat at the table as Poe shows the news coverage regarding their hectic time on Tatooine on the screen.

“Alright,” Poe calmly presents, “we’re not turning you in. In fact, we can’t even do that. You three are in a rough circumstance, I just want to know what happened.”

“Well,” Mors angirly explains, “for one! I didn’t steal the ship! In fact! Those bastards are the ones that stole it from me!” He bangs on the table.

“More news came out that the ship wasn’t just stolen.” Rey brings up. “But might of used unauthorized documents to build the ship. Did you happen to obtain those documents?”

“Unauthorized docu-Is this an interrogation? Do you seriously think I would be able to get my hands on government secret docs? No! I didn’t manage to steal any government documents! I built the Slave Duo through trial and error, reading a ton of articles and watching a ton of videos on the holonet!” Mors stands up. “Look! I get what’s going on. We’re a liability! Well! I got news for ya: I never intended to join the Anti Republic anyway! I’m a gangster now, ya hear? So if anyone asks about these two, just tell ‘em I kidnapped them, alright?”

“Hey, hey, kid, relax.” Poe tries to calm Mors down. “None of us are in a good position as is. Most of us here has a rough background of some kind. Would having you guys around make things harder? Yes. But we’re not kicking you out.”

“I already made my decision before I got here. I’m going solo.”

“Do you really think you’re gonna make it big as a gangster?”

“Yeah, I’m already a gangster back on Coruscant. Mostly drug dealing. But I killed people before who don’t pay. So I’m not just some wannabe you think I am, I’m already a thug.”

Poe and Zorii turn to each other knowing full well what Mors is going through. They were exactly like him when they were his age.

“Kid.” Zorii bluntly speaks. “You’re not going to make it far.”

“Oh?” Mors doubts. “You guys think you are?”

“Mors.” Poe continues. “We were drug dealers, well, not Rey. Me and Zorii. We thought we could of been the next Jabba or Xizor. But it just resulted in more pain and agony. Not that we had much choice, we were just trying to survive. Seeing what the New Republic has made no effort to change much of these conditions, is why I and many others formed the Anti Republic. To help people such as yourself out of poverty and protect you from the New Republic.”

“Well where’s the changes you made? I hate to be rude to you Poe. I respect you, but I find all of this to be nothing but a delusion of grandeur! People are still struggling in many reaches of the planets like Shok, you did nothing for his people! You did nothing when parents keep abandoning their children! You did nothing when children die on the streets! You did nothing when my sister was taken away!”

“Sister!?” SRC-0 and Shok said at the same time shocked.

“Why didn’t you do anything to save her then?” Zorii asks.

“Because the New Republic took her away for busted-ass Midi-chlorian check! She’s not a damn Jedi! She can’t use the force to lift a tissue! If she was rich and not a Rodian, they wouldn’t of done anything!”

“Would you say you’re making preparations to rescue her?” Rey asks.

“It’s going to take a while, years even. But yeah, rescuing my sister is a priority.”

“We may have some decent resources and budget.” Poe explains. “We still pale in comparison to the power the New Republic has. We have some support from senators, but due to our reputation, we can’t do much. In fact, we broke the law entering Tatooine without proper authorization. We’re not necessarily law abiding citizens either. Though, we’re still legally allowed to exist.”

SRC-0 turns their head up to Mors. “As much as I appreciate your selflessness Mors. Regardless of your association with us, that doesn’t make us less of wanted criminals… I… I still killed people.”

Shok turns his chair to Mors. “Plus, we’re in a pretty lucky situation. These people are willing to help us, despite the fact we’re wanted. You got to appreciate people’s acceptance Mors. I maybe a simple tatooine boy, but I’m pretty you’re aren’t going to find my other opportunities like this in other planets.”

Mors is frustrated at the fact that everyone has a good point. “Fine! I’ll join you jerks! But let’s make one thing clear! My mechanic, slicing and piloting skills aren’t free! And I care about one thing and one thing only and that is getting my sister back! Got it?”

Poe laughs. “Y’know, w never asked to you join, BUT,” Poe roughly pats Mors on the back, “welcome aboard anyway Mors! Don’t expect the pay to be high, but you’ll get free food, water, bedding. It’s like a real mediocre hotel, but it’s a mediocre hotel… With a good cause.”

“Just pay me a credit more than minimum wage, is that reasonable?”

“Sheesh, we’re going to pay more than _that_ . We’re the _Anti_ Republic after all!”

SRC-0 gets out of their seat and walks up to Rey. “Rey?” Shok follows SRC-0.

“What is it, young Padawan?” Rey responds.

“Was that any of that, news footage, concerning?”

“Well, we have our concerns about you since we found you. I understand you two’s circumstances had to survive. But if it concerns you, I will teach you on how to handle such situations better.”

“Thank you. It’s been bugging me since we left Tatooine.”

“That’s why the Jedi Order has been formed. To teach and help people to improve themselves. Especially with the New Jedi Order, we make rejection far more difficult… Also, did Maz find anything within you?”

“They’re invented by Lando!” Shok excitedly answers.

“Well, no.” SRC-0 corrects. “I might be a duplicate of a droid that was in development of Calrissian Enterprises.”

“Well, same diff.”

“Lando Calrissian is our friend. We should be able to arrange a call with him. He's a busy man so we might not be able to reach him immediately.”

“He's the mayor of Cloud City, right?” Shok remembers. 

“He is now the Governor of Bespin. But, yes, he's a politician. I think we're about done here, we’re going to head back to Ahch-To.” She turns to Shok. “Unless you want to join the Anti Republic, Shok?”

“Uuuuh, nah. I haven’t decided on that yet. So uh, I guess I’ll join you two.”

Rey leads SRC-0 and Shok to the docking bay. They see the Millennium Falcon is parked, indicating Rose returned. They take the Millennium Falcon to Ahch-To. SRC-0 isn't too impressed with the ship though Shok is too distracted to really noticed. Still having doubts about himself. Like Mors, he’s also reluctant to bring up his secrets. With his beliefs and his own negative perception towards his own kind. Shok fears may never truly belong anywhere.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of writing this note, I just found out that Chewbacca's actor Peter Mayhew passed away nine months ago. I didn't know at the time when I was writing Wrath of The Republic and I never intended to have Chewbacca's ill and dying state reflect on what happened. To respect Peter Mayhew's passing, Chewbacca will not be in the fan fiction from this point onward. I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable with the earlier chapters because of that.

**Dantooine**

The same van that picked up Neelki on Coruscant arrives at the Jedi Restoration Order’s temple at Dawn, driving out a large freighter. The temple itself is a mimic of the Jedi Temple that was on Coruscant decades ago. Though there’s more vegetation surrounding the temple considering the planet’s terrain. About a mile or two kilometers away from the primary temple itself, is the refugee camp. A large, bland, rectangle-shaped building surrounded by a laser fence. Neelki and the others from the van all are led by the cops and New Republic Troopers, lined up walking into the rectangle building. The refugees are all exhausted, some still in tears.

Inside the rectangle building is a heavily crowded building, with everyone either lying down or sitting on the hard floor. Most of the lights are dimly lit, with a few flickering. The Troopers and the new refugees have trouble walking over and finding a spot to sit. The Jedi are in a similar situation, as they try to give medical attention or deliver food. One Human Jedi Master is near the exit, that’s far from the entrance, observes the stilted discourse. He sighs and exits the building.

The Jedi Master walks across the courtyard, passing by the Padawan doing some exercises. They have similarities with the New Jedi Order, such as making the age to be a Padawan far more lenient and the uniforms have a similar conduct. The Jedi Masters wear the traditional garb of the Jedi during the era of the Republic of old, with more specifically a white garb and brown robes. This is the same with the Padawans, but they don’t get to wear a robe and the garbs are beige.

The Master stops by the large part of the courtyard where over a hundred Jedi Knights are choreographing in sync with their lightsabers and acrobatic movements. They’re all in a black jumpsuit, similar to what Luke wore when he was Jedi Knight. The master is saddened every time he sees the Jedi Knights exercising. Everyone within that group are human men.

The Master enters the temple, takes the elevator entering the second highest floor in the building. It’s a narrow hallway with many offices. The master enters one of them, seeing a portly middle-aged human Jedi Master sitting by his desk, holding onto two attractive young women in sexy dancer outfits. The perverted master is surprised and annoyed to see his colleague.

“Zamma!” The perverted master aggravatingly refers to the master. “Ever heard of knocking?”

“Master Iiej,” Zamma referring to the perverted master. “We need to do something with the refugees.”

“I understand that, we’re-”

“ **Now.** ”

“Look, nobody predicted that we’re gonna get flooded with a recent spring of force sensitives. It’s difficult to organize right now.”

“What’s the difficulty!? Either we accept them as students or start taking them to planets.”

“Okay, fine! We’ll start doing that tomorrow.”

“NO! We do it now! We have sixty percent of the refugees here currently, if we focus our efforts on getting this sorted out today, it shouldn’t take us more than three days max.”

Iiej’s smart-datapad starts ringing. “Hold on, I got a call.” He places his datapad on the desk, showing a hologram of Kyz Banon. Zamma rolls his eyes. “HEY! Dr. Kyz, what’s up my main man?”

“Greetings Master Iiej.” Kyz bows. “I want to discuss something with you privately.”

“Alright!” He lets go of the ladies. “SCRAM!” They leave the office.

Kyz turns around. “You too Master Zamma.”

“NO!” Zamma asserts. “Jedi Masters don’t keep secrets from each other! In fact, we shouldn’t be keeping secrets from anyone! That’s what led Anakin Skywalker to become Darth Vader! I am sickened with this bastardization of our order! Even the Jedi Order of old would be sickened by our current order!”

“Uh.” Iiej nervously speaks. “Do you really want to talk to Kyz Banon like that?”

“I don’t care about prestige! I care about what’s right! I will not leave this room!”

“Master Zamma.” Kyz calmly responds. “Your cybernetic heart transplant, was that manufactured by Firmasof?”

“Uh. Y-Yes?” Zamma is confused by the question, then his eyes are wide open. “WAIT! How did you know I got a heart transplant!?”

Kyz snaps his fingers and Zamma falls over dead. Iiej is both scared and frustrated.

“Great!” Iiej complains. “How am I supposed to explain Zamma’s death!?”

“We’ll take care of that.” Kyz reassures. “In fact, meet me at my office, I want to propose something to you… Something that can help you with your little… Refugee problem…” Iiej grins.

* * *

On Ahch-To, Rey and SRC-0 are in the hologram room having a three-way call with Poe and Maz from the Anti Republic base and Lando Calrissian from Cloud City. Lando himself is in a similar wardrobe he usually wears, however it’s all white with the cape having a large collar. SRC-0 is very shy to see Lando, a person that’s potentially their creator. Rey, Poe and Maz fill Lando with all the details about what they know about SRC-0.

Lando analyzes SRC-0. “That is a very impressive droid body.” Lando compliments. “Though, in terms of the externals, we couldn’t produce something _that_ good. But looking through the code, it’s definitely a replication of the ‘A1-EVE Project.’ The project was 75% complete, but my associates didn’t want it finished due to the recent controversies of autonomization. Though, I never stopped fighting to get A1-EVE finished. Well, the dream is fully realized! You’re here after all. In fact, you haven’t even spoken yet.” He grins. “C’mon, you don’t need to be shy.”

“Uh. Um. Sorry.” SRC-0 stammers. “Did you actually create A1-EVE by yourself?”

“I’m head designer, I’m one of the programmers, from a team of fifteen.”

“Are all fifteen still working at your company?”

“No. From what I’m gathering, I figure I know who might know who created you… Doctor Kyz Banon, the CEO of Holowan Laboratories.”

“Not like it’s a big surprise.” Poe says. “Still not the most reassuring to hear.”

“I didn’t know Kyz worked on the A1-EVE project.” Rey was surprised to hear. “Was it also tied to your following out with him?"

“Yeah,” Poe is also interested. “Explain the whole thing, for SRC.”

“Well,” Maz added. “We should start with explaining who Kyz is and what is Holowan Laboratories.”

“Alright.” Lando explains. “SRC. Holowan Laboratories is kinda like my company, a mega corporation specializing in technology. In the past, they weren’t a huge company, they were infamous for assisting the Trade Federation for turning Grievous into a Cyborg, created specifically to fight against Jedi. They’re also known for doing business with many gangs and mercenaries with their IG-88 droids. Business wasn’t doing too well for them, until a man from Kamino; who is Half Kaminoan, Half Skakoan, by the name of Kyz Banon takes interest in working for Holowan Laboratories. He’s a prodigy in the field of technology and bio-engineering, modernizing the respirators as we know it. He already had a great reputation, so much so, he was kidnapped by the First Order. His reputation would only improve when he assisted the Resistance. If it weren’t for him and his slicing skills, I wouldn’t have amassed a large army in the battle of Exagol. He’s now seen as a hero, allowing him to become CEO of Holowan and we formed a friendship.

Things however, changed. You see, I’m part of the Galactic Unity Party, he’s part of the Free Republic Party. Our morals didn’t gel well to put it lightly. Now, I want you guys to keep this a secret, if this comes out on what I’m about to say, my ass is going to be sued so much, it’ll be shut tight. So. He believed droids are the next step in evolution. His aim within the A1-EVE project is to create superior beings and not just to implement a new member of society. I don’t want that motivation to taint the aim of our project, so we formally moved on to our own ways.”

SRC-0 doesn’t take comfort in hearing any of this. “Lando…”

“SRC?” Lando responds.

“Are you certain I have freewill?”

“We have found nothing in the code to suggest you don’t. Kyz is a troubling man, but he knows full well that freewill is the essential ingredient in creating the truly sapient A.I. I’m more surprised that there doesn’t seem to be any holonet connection within you. If you are created by Kyz, the mystery here is the motivation.”

“This gives us even more justification to track down Holowan Labs’s headquarters for sure!” Poe asserts. “Lando, surely you know where it is, right?”

“They used to have their headquarters on Nar Shaddaa.” Lando answers. “But since the Starkiller Base incident, they have a space station now like many other mega corporations. Your best bet is to go to one of their rare offices, more specifically the one in Corellia. You’re bound to find the coordinates on where their headquarters are.”

“Thank you Lando. Can you get us an authorized access to Corellia?”

“I’ll try to manage something, you’ll see.” Lando and Maz end their call. “SRC-0, I’m going to be heading off now myself. Just know, you will face insecurity. Don’t let anyone, ever tell you you are not a person. Always treat everyone how you want to be treated and you’ll always be as much of a person than a human, bothan or anyone. Force sensitivity doesn’t take that away either.” An elderly bald man with a cybernetic headpiece whispers to Lando. “I gotta get going… Enjoy existence!”

The call ends. Rey notices SRC-0 is troubled. “Um…” She has trouble on what question to ask. “Uh, what do you think of Lando?”

“Oh uh,” SRC-0 turns to Rey. “He’s an interesting man… Just, the more I learn about myself. The less I kinda want to know.”

“Really? Are you afraid of your origin?” Rey was in a similar situation with SRC-0, she wanted to know her past, her family. When she found out she was Sidious’s granddaughter, at the time she wished she didn’t know.

“A little. It’s… It’s complicated… I don’t know how to explain it.”

Rey’s not entirely certain what SRC-0 is feeling, but she wants to give them some time to let their recent revelations sink in.

* * *

**Cantonica**

Fox Amat and two other captains walk across a bridge that leads them to a very gorgeous tall building. They’re all in their pilot uniform, with Fox Amat’s in particular being clean. Fox was requested to have a meeting within Cantonica, but is confused as to why, figuring he would have a meeting in the military bases in either Coruscant, Dantooine or one of the many New Republic military space stations. He wasn’t told much either.

One of the captains peers below the bridge, seeing Anti Republic protesters walking across the city streets.

“Anti Republic punks.” The captain disgusted with them. “When will they ever learn their place?”

Fox is appalled by what the captain said. “Excuse me? What’s wrong with protest?”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those Anti Republic sympathizers, Fox!”

“I don’t agree with the Anti Republic, but their protests are a sign we won the war against the Empire! Everyone has the right to protest. I have my problems with the New Republic and I’m not afraid to speak my mind about it!”

The two captains roll their eyes at Fox, thinking his passion is just an act when in fact, it’s legitimate. They enter the tower and enter the top floor. As the elevator doors opened, they’re greeted with Vice Chair Vlacrul in a large dining room, with drinks and food prepared.

Fox is surprised to see him. He walks out of the elevator and salutes. “Vice Chair Radoo Vlacrul! What a surprise to see you.”

“Have a seat, captain.” Vlacrul gestures.

Fox is stunned and confused. He awkwardly takes his seat.

“Care for a drink?”

“Sorry, I don’t drink alcohol. But what is it you need sir?”

“I saw you in the news and the masses were very much charmed by your passion.”

“I see. I take it this Dark Jedi is serious business, isn’t it?”

“Uh. Sure.” Radoo suspiciously responds awkwardly. “The Dark Jedi is concerned, the Jedi Restoration Order are looking into this Anyway. It’s more about the ship.”

“Uh, right of course. Why are you talking to me about this specifically? Like, where are the admirals?”

“Don’t worry about that. They’re informed. I have requested you here because you’re very integral to our plan on retrieving that ship. We have to fight fire with fire. To know a criminal, sometimes, you must be a criminal.”

“Are you saying that I’m a criminal?”

“No. You will be leading these convicts.” Radoo turns to his side and jerks his head up gesturing three people to walk forward. 

These convicts are a Red Kage Warrior man, in a robe with a pointy hat, a skinny human man with a fancy hat, eye patch and an elegant green coat and an attractive Chiss woman in dark purple spandex with robotic legs resembling a horse’s hind legs. All three have neck braces.

Fox is shocked to hear he’s leading convicts. “Did you say, I’m leading these guys?”

“Yes.” Radoo answers. “Their crimes are a bit too extreme to make them proper soldiers for the New Republic and their reputations far too tarnished to do get by doing anything. With you leading them, it makes things easier for them to get the job done. If they ever fall in love…” Radoo hands a remote device to Fox. “Just press those buttons three times rapidly and those neck braces will explode.”

“I… I see.”

“I understand your skepticism, captain. But it’s for the greater good. You understand, right?”

“Right…”

Fox puts the remote in his pocket. Not feeling good at all he’s tasked to work with not only convicts, but the fact that he holds their fate. Hopefully after this mission, he wouldn’t have to deal with anything like this again.

* * *

At the launch bay within the Anti Republic space station, Mors is fiddling around with the engine of his Slave Duo. Aze and Jia look at the ship with intrigue.

“Hey!” Jia calls Mors. He doesn’t respond. “Uh, hey?” still no answer.

Aze sees a wrench nearby, picks it up and tosses it at Mors’s arm.

“Ow.” Mors looks down, seeing Jia and Aze.

“We’re talking to you.” Said Jia.

“I know.” Mors replies annoyed with them. “And I’m working. Is there anything urgent?”

“No, we just ask about your ship.”

“Ugh. Fine, make it quick!”

“Why are you such a prick?” Aze asks.

“Because like all ships, they have no soul.” Mors answers.

“More soul than you.”

“I never said I had one.”

“Guys, guys” Jia tries to calm the arguing, “let’s not. Y’know… Uh. Look. Mors, what are you in a rush for?”

“Because I’m a wanted criminal, remember? I’m trying to install the cloaking device! So that way, if any New Republic assholes come in inspecting the place, they’ll have trouble finding this baby. There, you two satisfied?”

“Mors, why are you trying so hard to be distant from people?”

“I thought you’re asking about the ship!” Mors tries to calm down a bit. “Okay, I’m sorry. Look. I don’t want friends, okay? I’ll never be your friend and sure as hell I wasn’t friends with SRC and Shok. I’m just… Too dangerous to be around. Alright? Now will you leave me alone?”

“What about your sister?” Aze asks.

“Aze!” Jia shouts

“I don’t want to be with her anymore. I just want her safe…”

In the distance Poe and Maz observe Mors. “You sure want to get him on this mission?” Poe asks. “We’re not sure if he’s even that good of a slicer.”

“Trust me on this.” Maz confidently claims. “The plan will work…”

Poe and Maz walk towards the group. “Mors, Jia, Aze.” Poe calls them. “Meet me in the war room. We got a mission.”

Maz goes back to her workshop as Poe takes the group to the war room. Poe presents the plan on both screens. “Alright, we’re going to one of Holowan’s Offices in Corellia. We take C-3PO for repairs...”

C-3PO is also in the room missing his silver shin, and is missing half of his plating. He looks to the group. “Please stop staring at me, it wasn’t my idea to become a one legged half naked clown.”

Poe continues. “If all goes well entering the planet, we’ll be the ones to get C-3PO into the building. Uh, Maz says you’re a good slicer.”

“Uh, I’m pretty good.” Mors agrees. “But none of you guys saw what I could do. Plus don’t you guys have other slicers?”

“We do, but your ship is important to the plan. We need you to distract the planetary guards as we enter the planet.”

“Do you guys not have passports!?”

“We have passports. Authorization takes days, weeks even. Something’s up with Holowan and the longer we let things linger, the worse things get.

“And just what if I get blasted to hell by the New Republic pilots?”

“We got that covered.” Poe sends instructions to Mors through his datapad. Mors reads them on his datapad, scratching his head. “Follow these and everything should go smoothly.”

Mors puts his datapad back in his pocket. “This plan is complete ass. But hey, you’re paying me so…”

"Look can I be straight with you?"

"As opposed to being gay with me...? I'm sorry that's a terrible joke, no homophobe. Continue."

"You better not be homophobic, I'm bi. Anyway, we just want to test your skills. From what we understand at your time on Tatooine, you have that survival instinct. That's something we need for this mission."

* * *

Outside of Corellia, Poe Dameron leads the ships with the Outsider Iolaire. Jia has BB-8 on her X-wing and Aze has R2-D2 on her's. Mors… Has C-3PO sitting next to him. He is with Mors, so it would be easier for Poe and the others to track him. As Mors is following the group, he jams to Ithorian rap music in galactic basic. It’s rap music, but filled with the guttural shouts of Ithorians. C-3PO doesn’t like the music, taps the radio to play some more pleasant. Mors immediately hits the button, going back to playing Ithorian rap. The ships get close to the atmosphere, Mors sets his ship into vertical position.

“Alright.” Mors cracks his knuckles. “You like roller coasters C-3PO?”

“I hate them!” C-3PO answers.

“Too bad.”

Mors flights straight down into Corellia, turns off his cloaking device. Four New Republic X-wings start approaching the Slave Duo. The ship gets into a horizontal position and flies forward. This alerts the X-wing pilots, focusing their attention on the Slave Duo. Poe and the others fly into Corellia.

C-3PO screams in terror, almost like he’s in sync with the Ithorian screaming in the current song playing. While Mors is focusing on trying to lose the X-wing’s tracks, he does have a few glances on Corellia. He knew it has massive cities, but he also heard there’s more vegetation compared to Coruscant. The ships are getting near, attempting to fire at the Slave Duo. They miss, as Mors moves the ship up and down.

Mors glances at the distance ahead of him.. “3PO.” C-3PO is still screaming. “Will you shut up?” C-3PO stays quiet, Mors lowers the volume on the radio. “Where’s the ocean?"

“What?”

“The ocean? You know, where we have to be? What’s part of the plan?”

“OH… I don’t have that much geographical knowledge in my data banks. Can’t you ask Poe?”

“I can’t contact them! It’ll jeopardize the mission! WHATEVER! I was given specific coordinates on where to go! If these are wrong, well’p! It was nice knowing you 3PO. Not really, I hate your very existence to the core, but not enough to where you deserve to die of the Anti Republic's incompetence.”

“I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel complimented or insulted by that sentiment.” Two blaster bolts graze the Slave Duo and one X-wing bumps underneath it. “Just how far are we to the coordinates!?”

“Five hundred miles.”

“Eight hundred and four kilometers!?!?!”

“I didn’t pick the spot!” Mors sets the ship to snap into a vertical position, which knocks the X-wing below causing it to wobble backwards. 

The wobbling X-wing has massive dents and smoke is coming out from it. X-Wings start to rapidly fire at the Slave Duo more aggressively. The Slave Duo takes a couple of hits. Mors gets the Slave Duo into a horizontal position, reverses the ship at a fast speed into the X-wings. They fly out of the way while stile firing at the ship, hitting a few extra times. Mors then dives the Slave Duo into the city flying through the traffic. The X-Wings continue the pursuit and chase Mors, holding fire. Mors intentionally recklessly flies through traffic, causing aggression among the civilians. He furthers it by instantly snapping into the vertical position of the Slave-Duo, which causes other ships to swerve in different directions.

The X-wings bump into civilian ships by accident, with a large ship bumping into the heavily damaged X-wing, causing it to explode. Mors sees a mountainous area nearby, and heads for that. The explosion of one New Republic X-wing prompts four more to come over in the scene. They’re above Mors’s ship and begin firing from above. Mors gets the ship into the horizontal position tilts it to its side dodging the blasters. The X-wings hold fire and let Mors enter the mountainous region, chasing him from there.

As Mors enters the mountainous region, seven X-wings surround the Slave Duo. Mors preps the targeting system.

“You’re not really going to try to kill them, are you?” C-3PO asks.

"Maybe." Mors answers. "But that's not why I'm setting up the targeting system."

Mors dodges the mountain terrains, while not trying to fly above the peaks. The X-wings traverse around the mountains, firing at the Slave Duo. It takes several hits. Part of it starts to smoke. One X-wing flies over shooting the Slave Duo with a single blaster than flying behind a mountain. Mors flies the ship at a slightly slower speed. As the next X-wing does that again, Mors rotates the cockpit upward, then calibrates the ship into a vertical position rushing upward towards X-wing, bumping it, the other X-Wings all stop hiding and start rushing towards the Slave Duo. Mors gets the ship into a horizontal position. He maintains the cockpit’s position, and moves towards an X-Wing, rotating the Slave Duo’s ship to the left, batting the X-Wing. He does this again to another. This causes the two X-Wings to wobble around a bit, one of X-Wings bumping into another.

The Slave Duo is having a calibration error, when Mors moves the ship forward it rotates all over the place. The targeting system is getting erratic and glitching out. Mors rapid fires. The X-wings are moving out of the way, dodging the speeding Slave Duo, and the blaster bolts from it. They try to fire at it, but keep missing and accidentally hitting an ally X-Wing. None of this helps within the very rough mountainous terrain. They separate and fly upward.

“What are you doing Mors!?!?” C-3PO panics.

“So, you know I said how far the coordinates are?” Mors asks.

“Uh, yes?”

“I lied. That’s how far or destination is. We’re here!”

The calibration errors stop and Mors turns on the signal jammers and sets off into the hyperspace. While there, Mors turns on the cloaking device. He gets out of hyperspace, appearing close to his destination, which is a giant cave on an island. High up in the sky, is the vast ocean, though it’s not as far as the eye can see, with cities still noticeable within the horizon. Mors lands inside the cave and waits for Poe Dameron. The wait wasn’t long, as the Outsider Iolaire arrives. Mors and C-3PO exit the Slave Duo and enter the Iolaire. As Poe prepares for launch, Mors walks up to Poe.

“Where’s Jia and Aze?” Mors asks.

“They’re at the Coronet Spaceport.”

“Aren’t they going to get caught?”

* * *

Meanwhile at the Coronet Spaceport, Jia and Aze land their X-wings. As they get out, they’re approached by New Republic Troopers.

“Hey!” One of the New Republic Trooper shouts. “You’re not authorized to dock here!”

Suddenly, two ships from Bespin, similar in look to the Storm IV Twin-Pod cloud cars arrive in the scene. The pilots get out and hands the New Republic Trooper a tablet-like device. The New Republic Trooper reads it and nods, handing the tablet back to the Bespin pilots. He turns to Jia and Aze.

“Sorry about that.” The New Republic Trooper apologizes. “You may carry on."

* * *

In space, Mors is leading the convicts, each having their own starfighter. The Kage is piloting a modified E-Wing, the skinny man pilots a Z-95 Headhunter and the Chiss pilots what looks to be TIE fighter cockpit, but with large X-Wing blaster cannons. This starfighter is known as the _Hybrid X-TIE/LN_.

“Uh.” Fox tries to start a conversation through radio communication. “You guys got names?”

“The name’s… Rimzin.” The Kage answers.

“I’m Dalaraga.” The Chiss also answers.”

“Oooh, the man wants to humanize eh? Ahahahahaaaaa!” The skinny man maniacally laughs. “I’ll give ya name. I’m dead! I'm deceased baby! I’m free of the slavery of identity! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Well, I gotta call you something, don’t I?” Fox asks.

“Oh you call me anything ya like. A fake name is better than a real one!”

“What do you guys call him?”

“This is our first time meeting him.” Dalaraga answers.

“Alright then…” Fox thinks about a name. “How’s Jomb? You like Jomb?”

The nameless man snickers.

“Jomb it is.” Fox Amat gets a message from Corellia. A hologram of a New Republic Trooper appears on Fox’s dashboard.

“Captain Amat." The New Republic Trooper reports. "Our pilots encountered the Slave Duo. They tried to apprehend it but they lost the ship.”

“Alright, I’m on it!” Fox then messages to the convicts. “We’re heading to Corellia! You promise me no disintegrations, alright?”

Jomb laughs, Rimzin doesn’t answer, only Dalaraga responds: “We’ll behave.”

“You better.”

Fox and the other convicts speed up their starfighters, heading for Corellia. 


End file.
